Turkington tops as Boyd adds another Euro win
WAYNE Boyd made it back-toback wins in the European Le Mans Series as Colin Turkington put on a driving master class to extend his lead at the top of the British Touring Car Championship.
Despite his West Surrey Racing BMW carrying maximum ‘success’ ballast from the first round at Donington last week, when he record his first win of the season, Turkington made light of the weight to finish second in the first of the three races at a sweltering Brands Hatch yesterday and then led from start to finish in race two.
“It was a close to perfect race and a big thanks to the team because, like at Donington, my car was improved for race two and that’s why we had that outstanding pace. I’m really pleased to chalk another win,” said the fourtime champion from Portadown who went on to finish fifth in the reverse grid third race.
Turkington had qualified the ‘heavy’ BMW fifth fastest on Saturday but surged off the line in race one to quickly move into third behind the Ford of pole-sitter Rory Butcher and his title rival from last season, Dan Cammish.
The top three pulled clear of the field only for Butcher to suffer a puncture after a safety car re-start late in the race, handing victory to Cammish’s Honda with Turkington settling for second.
In race two, he sprinted off the line and into a lead he was never to lose as Cammish struggled to get going with maximum ballast. The Honda later slowed with a technical problem, allowing the Toyota of Tom Ingram to take second ahead of Ash Sutton’s Infiniti.
But just like last week when Turkington was invited to make the draw for race three, he again pulled out ball 12, promoting Aidan Moffett to pole and dropping himself to the sixth row of the grid. He picked his way through the field to finish fifth, increasing his lead in the standings to 16 as his BMW team-mate Tom Oliphant won for the first time.
Fellow Ulsterman Chris Smiley had benefited from the lucky break at Donington, going on to finish second in the all-new Hyundai i30. But the Carrickfergus driver had a tough time at Brands, qualifying 15th and finishing 15th in race one and then having to climb from the back of the field after sliding off onto the grass in race two. He was 13th but made rapid progress to climb to fourth before crashing out.
Tom Edgar had a difficult weekend, too; the 16-year-old from Belfast managing a best finish of seventh in the three UK Ginetta Junior races.
Boyd, meanwhile, added another victory to his European LMS success in France a fortnight ago, topping and tailing a dominant LMP3 win for the United Autosports team at Spa in Belgium.
Just as at the Paul Ricard circuit, they qualified their Ligier-nissan prototype on pole position and then watched as team-mates Rob Wheldon and
Tom Gamble took into the lead. The Templepatrick driver then stepped up for the final stint of the four-hour race, bringing the car safely to the finish despite a late scare when the rain arrived just as he was taking over from Gamble.
Earlier, Boyd had finished in fourth place in the Le Mans Cup alongside American amateur racer John Schauermann on a another strong weekend for the Anglo-american UA team who also won the LMP2 category with Phil Hanson and Felipe Albuquerque.
Charlie Eastwood was back on track for the first time since the start of Covid-19 lockdown in March, partnering Salih Yoluc in the opening rounds of the European GT Open series at the Hungaroring.
Spa success: Wayne Boyd made it two wins out of two
Bringing their TF Sport Aston Martin home sixth in the first race, they grabbed a podium in race two, finishing third just 12 seconds behind the winning Ferrari of Vincent Abril and Louie Prelte.