BTCC: KNOCKHILL
Team BMW’s Colin Turkington moved to the top of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship standings after scoring a hat-trick of third places at Knockhill.
The Fife circuit also proved to be a happy hunting ground for Cobra’s Tom Ingram whose Speedwork’s Toyota took the chequered flag in the final race of the day.
Race one saw the first four grid positions maintained from lights to flag as rear-wheel drive machines proved their supremacy: The two Team BMWs of Turkington and Rob Collard finishing third and fourth following a wonderfully close battle in which the top four were rarely separated by more than a second.
Two of the “Cobra drivers” precipitated a red flag at the start of race two – Andrew Jordan’s BMW gave a hefty nudge to the rear of Matt Neal’s Honda which started a dramatic chain reaction resulting in five cars being ruled out of the re-start – including Andrew Jordan.
After the restart, the race took on a similar pattern to race one with Turkington maintaining his position at the top of the standings as he again took third place with his teammate Rob Collard again finishing fourth to maintain his own championship challenge.
Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram (sitting pretty in his COBRA 129) won the final encounter of the day after getting the better of an early battle against another driver in a Cobra seat – Ant Whorton-Eales in his Audi.
Ingram never looked back as he took his third win of the season to jump-start his own championship challenge. Reigning BTCC champion Gordon Shedden grabbed a popular second place finish on his own track, whilst Turkington completed the podium with his third third of the day.
So, at the end of the day the driver’s championship is closer than ever – with Cobra drivers featuring in six of the top seven positions: Colin Turkington leads the standings by four points with “Flash” twelve points back in third, Rob Collard fourth and Tom Ingram, Matt Neal and Andrew Jordan in fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.
Cobra seats feature at the top of the other tables, too BMW and West Surrey Racing top the Manufacturers’ and Teams’ tables, while Tom Ingram and his Speedworks Motorsport team are heading the Independents’ tables.
Photos by ‘Jakob Ebrey Photography’
