Race one report

Sun 31st May 2009 Colin Turkington closed the gap to championship leader Matt Neal with a win in round 10 of the 2009 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park.

Team RAC’s Turkington started third on the grid, but beat the two front-row occupying Chevrolet Lacettis into Old Hall for the first time. The BMW had the pace to stay ahead of Plato in second but Turkington could not afford a mistake as former champion was right on his tail.

Turkington said, “I knew my big chance to win that race was to pass the Chevrolets off the start. I did that and then managed to have a good race. I was just thinking about looking after the tyres, because even in my car, the rear wheel drive BMW, the tyres do start to go off towards the end of the race, but we had good pace.”

Away from the line, Turkington dived between Plato and Jackson, with the two Chevrolets holding on to second and third positions. Jonny Adam moved up to fourth for Airwaves BMW, ahead of Stephen Jelley in the second of the Team RAC BMWs.

Jelley held fifth spot for just a couple of laps, until Fabrizio Giovanardi squeezed his Vectra up the inside at the hairpin, before forcing Jelley to cede going into the Hislop’s chicane. Rob Collard followed Giovanardi on to the tail of Jelley, with Adam Jones right behind him in the Cartridge World SEAT.

Matt Neal joined the Jelley, Collard, Jones group, which had now seen Jones pass the Airwaves BMW. Neal positioned his Vauxhall just to the inside of Collard along the straight and nosed in front through Old Hall on lap four, only for Collard to pull back ahead through Cascades. Neal repeated the same move on the following lap and this time made it stick.

Collard dropped back from this group and soon had his mirrors filled with another Vectra – this time it was Andrew Jordan, who also had the pace to pass him at the end of the straight. The pair battled for much of the remainder of the race, with Collard eventually getting the better of the young VX Racing driver, passing on the inside at Cascades a couple of laps before the end.

The order at the front was unchanged, with Turkington leading from Plato and Jackson. However, Jackson was out of luck as his Lacetti suffered a front-left puncture on lap 13, forcing him to pit and dropping him to the back of the pack. This promoted Jonny Adam to third.

There were no further changes among the top three as Turkington took his second win of the year, trailed by Plato and Adam. Giovanardi was fourth, ahead of Jelley and Jones. Matt Neal finished seventh, with James Thompson eighth. Rob Collard and Andrew Jordan crossed the line ninth and tenth respectively.

Mat Jackson’s only consolation was a single point for setting the fastest lap of the race. He will be forced to fight his way through from the back of the grid in race two after finishing in 19th position.