Exclusions give Turkington crucial boost
With two key rivals falling foul of post-race scrutineering, Colin Turkington’s grip tightened on the BTCC title during a wet weekend at Knockhill
It looks like a paint roller on a long handle. But it is a piece of equipment that is a vital tool for the British Touring Car Championship officials. After a race, the roller must be able to pass under the car unimpeded to prove that a machine has completed the race with its minimum rideheight intact. After Ash Sutton had taken his second win of the meeting at Knockhill last weekend following a stunning opener, he pulled up in the parc ferme area. The technical official got out his roller and it failed to go underneath the Team BMR Levorg. Several attempts were made, but it simply didn’t happen.
The podium celebrations took place as normal while the officials checked and rechecked the car. It ultimately failed.
But there was further drama. Tom
Ingram, who had backed up sixth place in the opening race with second behind Sutton in race two, was also wearing a frown. The roller could not squeeze underneath the front of his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis either.
While that handed a maiden victory of the season to WSR BMW 125i M Sport man Andrew Jordan, who had been near the front all weekend, it also gave Jordan’s team-mate Colin Turkington a massive boost in his title hopes.
Turkington had finished second in race one behind Sutton, and was then promoted to fourth in race two after Sutton and Ingram were pinged. The two censured drivers are the others in the heart of the fight for the crown alongside the Northern Irishman.
What it meant was that Turkington started the finale from third with only 33kg of success ballast, while his two foes were banished to the back of the race-three grid with 75kg and 66kg of extra weight.
This is very much likely to be the tipping point of the title chase. Turkington raced to second spot in the finale behind Tom Chilton’s Motorbase Performance Ford Focus. Even though Sutton scorched through the field to land eighth at the flag (while Ingram was 16th), Turkington left Fife with a handy 43-point buffer in his pocket. With only two meetings left, he will be the hot favourite – not that he is admitting it.
“You can never take anything for granted in this championship – just look at the ups and downs there have been today,” said Turkington. “But I would always rather have the points in my pocket than be out there chasing them. Yes, this weekend has gone very well for us given what has happened to the others.”
Turkington had a lucky escape of his own earlier in the meeting. While he was battling for second place in race one with the Team Parker Racing BMW 125i M Sport of Stephen Jelley, the two-time champion uncharacteristically nudged into the back of his rival and pushed him into the gravel.
Turkington said: “I feel sorry for Stephen, and we had been having a great scrap. He made a small slip coming out of the chicane and we both went to the inside of the track going into Clark’s. He hit the brakes and I had nowhere to go and we touched. I will go and apologise to him straight away – there was certainly no malice in it.”
Jelley accepted the apology, and Turkington was given two penalty points on his race licence but, crucially, was allowed to keep his result. The Northern Irishman said that the handling of his car was slightly awry as he slipped to sixth in race two, but that became fourth when the under-the-car roller had done its deeds.
WSR was pleased with its weekend’s work. Jordan had been right in the hunt for pole position but was ultimately thwarted by yellow flags. He started third before dropping to fourth in race one, but a set-up tweak on the spring rates for race two worked. He finished third on the road, but was promoted to the win. “I will take them any way they come,” said the Pirtek-backed man.
In the final race, Jordan battled throughout and eventually wriggled free for another
podium with third spot to push himself up to fourth in the points.
Sutton’s race one win was achieved from eighth on the grid after a barnstorming drive. He would have been the only driver who was pleased when he saw the persistent rain on Sunday morning. In a car that he still feels is giving away something in terms of straightline speed, a wet track was his only chance.
He is a master in tricky conditions, too. He grabbed the lead at the halfway stage of the opener when he jumped the ailing Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R of early leader Dan Cammish and zoomed clear, despite a late-race safety car wiping out his sevensecond lead. “It was tricky, because they’ve laid new Tarmac here,” said Sutton. “No-one knew how much grip there was, and as I was the leader, I was the one finding out first.”
Then there was the hammer blow of the second race. Sutton was pragmatic, but it was obvious that losing what would have been 22 points was painful. “The car was fine on the left-hand side, and at the front and the back. However, it failed on the right-hand side. I had slipped off the track earlier on at Duffus Dip when I was pushing and maybe that caused a bit of damage. I can’t change it now, so we have to look forward.”
The reigning champion is known for his charging drives, and he needed one. A disjointed race three with safety cars gave him the opportunity he needed, and he skilfully guided his way through the midfield to land eighth and at least rescue eight marks.
Ingram was less fortunate. He had hauled 66kg from the third row to sixth in race one, but once he was shorn of serious weight, he flew through the pack in race two to climb to second with some seriously good overtaking.
He was also pragmatic about the penalty that could well have derailed his title hopes. “The rules are black and white – they are written in a book!” he observed. “There was contact in the queue for the hairpin on the opening lap and that might have caused some damage. I am not sure that would have represented a performance advantage, but we will have to take it on the chin.”
Ingram then had to avoid a midfield shunt in the early stages of race three, which restricted him to a pointless 16th.
Cammish was also pointless in race three when his Civic Type R overheated. That was a shame, because he had driven well all weekend. A maiden pole position was helped by the fact he was carrying no ballast into the event, but he fought tooth-and-nail for top spot with Jordan and the rejuvenated Jelley and eventually prevailed by 0.023s.
“I think I took a knife to a gunfight,” he mused after finishing third in the opener. The rear-wheel-drive cars all around him made his performance even more impressive.
That meant he was saddled with 57kg for race two and was forced to fight a rear-guard action, but fifth was a solid return, even before that became his second podium of the meeting when the top two were booted out.
The car was overheating in race three and he was losing power. Cammish slipped down the order to an eventual 17th place.
Fellow Team Dynamics Honda Civic man Matt Neal came to the meeting equal fourth in the points table. Because he was tied with Jack Goff (Eurotech Honda Civic) he would only carry 39kg into the event but that still tipped the car over the edge.
“It is interesting, because our car is fantastic over the kerbs, which there are lots of here, but we are also strong on the faster corners, and there aren’t any,” he explained. A busy track in qualifying left him with 21st spot, but the real nadir came on lap 11 of the opening race. Matt Simpson’s Simpson Racing Honda Civic Type R cannoned into the side of the factory version at the hairpin, which demolished the rear suspension of the three-time champion’s car.
Once that happens, a driver has to start at the back for race two and, in the compact midfield, that spells trouble. In the end, Neal only scored one point for 15th in race three.
Josh Cook dragged himself up to fifth in the points with a strong weekend. The softly sprung Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra, which always showed lots of pitch and yaw, performs well in the soggy conditions.
He was stripped of a qualifying lap and therefore started 10th and, if he had been closer to the front, it is possible he could have won the opening race. He climbed to fifth and that translated into second spot in the second event after the dramas for others. Lugging 39kg to sixth in the finale rounded out a weekend where he was on form.
The final victory was reserved for Chilton, and that was a long way from where he had started the weekend. Traffic spoiled his qualifying run on a grid where the top 26 were covered by one second.
He finished 12th in race one after starting 15th, and improved that to sixth in race two. There was a slice of luck with reversed-grid pole, but he didn’t squander it despite the wet-but-drying track.
“The team has worked so hard and we have been so hungry for this,” said the ex-world Touring Car racer, who won his first race since his ‘first’ British touring car career ended in 2011. “I looked after my tyres, and I had enough in hand to fend off Turkington when he appeared behind me.”
His puppy-dog enthusiasm for his victory contrasted with Turkington’s knowing smile.
Turkington might not have won a race in Scotland, but it could well be the venue where he nailed down a third career crown.