BARMY BTCC BLASTS OFFOFF BLAST SB LASTS OFF
INGRAM TOP AFTER CRAZY OPENER
If fans were looking for a championship storyline to emerge after the opening three British Touring Car Championship races of the year, then they would have left Brands Hatch on Sunday sadly disappointed.
If they wanted to see door handleto-door handle racing and an epic chase, then the races would have left them well satisfied.
A controlled drive by Jack Goff in his Eurotech Racing Honda Civic grabbed a race one win, while a truly sensational wet-tyred cars versus dry-tyred cars battle in the second encounter left everyone guessing until Senna Proctor took the laurels for his maiden win in the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra.
Tomingram’s accomplished performance to win race three in the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis restored some normality.
For last year’s title protagonists, Ash Sutton (Subaru Levorg) and Colin Turkington (WSRBMW125I Msport), it was merely a weekend to endure, collecting slim pickings.
The meeting at Brands encompassed more twists and turns than the Indy circuit itself.
Race one
As the rain increased on Sunday morning, one question was removed: who would make the soft tyres work?
Instead, the entire field, headed by poleman Goff, was on wet tyres. Alongside him on the front row was Sam Tordoff in the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus RS.
But there, lurking on row two, was the rear-wheel-drivebmwof Turkington. Renowned for good starts, the smart money was on him reaching the top of Paddock Hill Bend first. The Northern Irishman, however, was more circumspect after a shunt away from the line ruled him out 12 months beforehand. “The race and the championship can’t be won at the first corner…” he pondered.
Dan Cammish, the rookie in the Team Dynamics Honda, was sharing row two with Turkington ahead of Andrew Jordan’s WSR Bmwand Matt Neal in his Honda.
Goff’s start was a peach, but as he looked in his mirror, the rear-wheel train was coming. Turkington leapt into second and Jordan was attached to his bootlid, but the Honda had enough of an advantage to hold sway.
Going into Druids, Jordan’s preference to head for the outside line, which he thought would offer more grip in the damp, caught him out. Cammish powered back ahead on the inside. The slow-starting Tordoff followed in fifth.
Going into Surtees, Tordoff had dropped further back – his freshly bolted on wet tyres were too cold – and his woe increased. He was slow into the left hander, which allowed Matt Simpson to try and pass around the outside of the turn, but the pair made contact. Simpson speared across the bows of the following Neal and Ingram was involved too. It served to break Neal’s front-left suspension and deposited the threetime champ in the gravel and it ended Simpson’s race too.
That suspended the action for five laps, but it didn’t bother Goff. When the green flag flew, he simply got his head down again. Turkington, though, was a constant shadow.
The positions almost swapped on lap 14 when the Honda ran slightly wide at Clearways, but thebmwwas wrong-footed.
“I had a chance down the inside, but the track was so slippery I couldn’t get the power down,” explained Turkington. “I wasn’t going to risk it all.”
Goff’s third career win was certainly his hardest fought but he was beaming. “What a way to start,” he said. “There was pressure, sure, but I was having to concentrate so hard.”
Behind them, Jordan was able to reassert himself over Cammish at the start of lap 11 as the new Civic’s grip disappeared.
In the end, Ingram’s Avensis overtook Cammish as well, as the double Porsche champ slumped.
Tomchilton (Motorbase Performance Ford Focus) jumped him, then Adam Morgan (Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes) too.
The fight for seventh place went to the line with Cammish struggling to hold on. The team admitted it hadn’t gone far enough towards a wet set-up and the Yorkshireman knew he was a sitting duck.
“I was pleased with my start as it was my first in a BTCC car and it was in the wet,” said Cammish. “But as the race went on, the grip disappeared at the front. I had two options: either I could have held everyone up and had a huge queue behind me and then risk losing a bunch of places, or try and manage it. I managed it, and I am glad I did but the car had absolutely no grip at all at the end.”
Sutton had been on a charge in his Subaru. His underpowered car revelled in the wetter conditions, and his climb from 18th on the grid was mesmerising. He was into the top 10 after 16 laps and stalked the prey ahead, and that brought him onto the tail of Cammish’s Honda on the final lap.
In the end, it was easy work as the Subaru took the inside line into Clearways to grab seventh. Cammish held off Chris Smiley (BTC Norlin Honda) and James Cole
(Motorbase Performance Ford Focus) to round out the top 10, although those positions were later reversed as the officials deemed Smiley had ‘pushed to pass’ Cole.
Race two
That pesky weather. It was still wet for race two, but the rain had stopped. The dilemma centred on which tyres to go for.
The frontrunners plumped for the safe option of wets. That was sensible given the track conditions at the start, but would they last? Those at the back, with little to lose, had opted to gamble on the slicks.
The first major drama came away from the line on the warm-up lap when Turkington’s bmw went into limp mode, which left him stranded and headed for the pits. With Neal starting from the back too (on slicks but with a fully wet set-up), that was two major players out of the picture. But the picture would become very blurred.
Jordan got the jump on Goff from the start, and Ingram was soon into second place. The picture was in sharp focus as Ingram’s Toyota hunted Jordan down after a brief safety car to zero in on the lead.
The Independents Trophy holder pulled a move for the lead on the inside coming through Clearways at the end of lap eight, and seemed set fair to win.
But after 18 laps, it became clear that the top three were struggling Goff was resurgent, even with 75kg of success ballast on his Honda, to pass Jordan and close on the leader.
Behind them though, things were going bananas. Proctor, who had started his Vauxhall from 27th on the grid after contact in race one. had the softer option tyres
fitted to his Astra and he was searing into the top eight by lap 19 – and he had the dry-tyred Jake Hill (Team HARDVWCC) and Aiden Moffat (Laser Tools Racing) for company.
Just two laps later, Moffat was in the lead. As the regular pacesetters were wobbling all over the place with their knackered Dunlops, Proctor went three-wide with Goff and Moffat for first at Druids, and the Mercedes man nipped through.
Moffat fended off Proctor, Hill and Ollie Jackson (AMD Tuning.com Audi) in a hungry crocodile, with all but the leader set for their best career results in the BTCC no matter what happened from this point.
On lap 25, with just two to run, Proctor tried to get underneath Moffat coming out of Druids and made the move stick. There was brief contact between the pair and the former leader ended up hard in the tyres on the outside of the circuit (although he regained the track to come home in fifth).
That was enough to give Proctor his maiden win from Hill and Jackson, with returnee Tom Boardman (AMD Tuning.com MG) in fourth.
Behind Moffat, sixth place was taken by the slick-tyred car of Rob Austin (HMS Racing Alfa Romeo Giulietta), who was pulled on the reversed grid pole. Other slick runners Simpson, Mike Bushell (Team HARDVWCC) Hard VW CC) and Rory Butcher (AMD Tuning.com MG) rounded out the top nine.
Of those who had persevered with the wet weather tyres, Goff headed those runners in 10th place ahead of Ingram and Sutton.
It was a crazy result to a crazy race.
Race three
This was going to be an interesting one, with the majority of the runners on the preferred softer option tyre. Drivers have to nominate which race to use it in and if the race they nominate is wet, they have to use it at the next opportunity. As most had run wets in races one and two, they would run the softer tyre in race three.
For a few moments, it looked like Austin would have the front row to himself as Moffat’s car failed to get away on the warm-up lap, but the Merc cleared itself and he managed to restore himself to his rightful place in time.
It didn’t help him jump the Alfa though, and he instead was staring at the rear of Jackson’s Audi as the pack headed to Paddock as he had slipped to third.
The pressure cooker of Boardman and Bushell behind only lasted one lap before contact at the first turn second time around, and they served to slow themselves and allow Ingram through to fourth.
At that point, the safety car was out for a clash between Cole and Rob Collard (WSR Bmw125imsport) at Druids. Calm was restored.
At the restart, Ingram jumped Moffat immediately at Druids and then hunted down Jackson. As the cars finished lap seven, he was into second, a remarkable climb from 11th on the grid.
“No matter what we do to this car – put weight in, take it out – it handles brilliantly,” said Ingram. “I can put it where I want to and it sticks, which is a credit to my team.”
Austin was one second up the road when Ingram found himself heading the chase. It took four laps for the Toyota to attach itself to the bootlid of the Giulietta, and then a further three laps to unseat the Italian machine. Ingram used a tighter line coming out of Clearways – a move that had been hugely successful for him throughout the day – to move alongside Austin at the end of lap 12 and into the lead.
Austin, who was using the softer tyres on the brand new car for the first time, was in trouble with his rubber and fell back into the clutches of the flying Morgan, who was mirroring Ingram’s charge.
His move to depose Austin was more robust than Ingram’s, with a brief touch between the two at Clearways going on to the last lap.
“I am not really sure there was a gap there,” said a rather miffed Austin afterwards.
Behind them, one of the recoveries of the weekend belonged to Sutton. Despite not having pace in the car, he had taken his chances and his rise to fourth capped a solid weekend’s performance. He had passed Bushell with four laps to go. Bushell headed home Butcher’s MG and Simpson’s Honda to round out the top seven.
Goff, who had slumped down the order after running in the top five earlier on, came home in eighth place. He blamed repeated contact during his early battles with Jackson for his demise.
“He was hugging the inside of every corner, and then switching from one side of the track straight to the other do defend,” said the exasperated Eurotech man. “He gave me a proper whack into Clearways early on and my car wasn’t the same after that.”
Turkington rescued points from 27th place after his electrical woe in race two with a fine ninth spot in the finale, and Josh Cook’s Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra rounded out the top 10.