Gordon Shedden fought his way to victory in the third and final race of the weekend at Silverstone, while Andrew Jordan heads into the final round of the season with a 34 point lead.
Shedden’s team-mate Matt Neal started from pole position but was beaten into turn one by the rear-wheel drive BMW of Colin Turkington from the front row, the Irishman pulling away from the field early in the race.
Neal’s attention turned to defending second from Sam Tordoff, the MG KX Momentum Racing driver attempting a move around the outside at Brooklands before tagging the Honda sideways a corner later, Tordoff being spat into a spin after further contact between the pair exiting Luffield.
Aron Smith and Shedden profited from the kerfuffle to move ahead of Neal, Shedden ramping up the pressure and finally pulling off a move at Brooklands up the inside of the Airwaves Ford Focus.
The Scot then trimmed Turkington’s two-second lead to virtually nothing, before the safety car was deployed in the second half of the race for debris on the circuit at the final corner.
Shedden instantly pounced on Turkington’s eBay Motors BMW when the restart got underway, nipping inside heading out of Copse where Smith also demoted his fellow Irishman down to third.
Shedden’s fate was essentially sealed as he went on to claim his first win since Snetterton, joined on the podium by Smith and his own Yuasa Racing team-mate Neal.
Turkington’s race ended in disaster however with three laps to go, when a breakage on his right-rear suspension left him spinning at Copse, the crabbing BMW forced into retirement and leaving the championship points falling through his fingers.
Fourth went to the charging Airwaves Ford of Mat Jackson on its softer tyres, making short work of Jason Plato at Copse before passing Jordan at Brooklands shortly afterwards.
Jackson interloped the continuation of Plato and Jordan’s race two fight, Plato twice tagging the Eurotech Honda Civic sideways at Luffield. Jordan hung onto fifth in a superb weekend for the championship eader, now 34 points ahead of Neal with three races at Brands Hatch left on the calendar.
Dave Newsham spent much of the race battling with Adam Morgan‘s similar Toyota Avensis, Newsham eventually gaining the upper hand before demoting Plato to seventh, Jack Goff and Dan Welch rounding out strong weekends with top 10 finishes behind Morgan who charged from the back of the field to eighth.
Rob Austin suffered a drastically different race weekend to Rockingham, 17th place behind Warren Scott the end result of the day, Aiden Moffat finishing 19th in the Team HARD Volkswagen Passat ahead of Lea Wood who made it a hat-trick of S2000 class victories.
