Colin Turkington took a comfortable third win of the 2014 British Touring Car Championship season, leading a WSR one-two in race one at Oulton Park.
The 12-lap encounter held in glorious summer conditions at the Cheshire circuit was a mostly uneventful affair, Turkington leading from lights-to-flag for his third win of the season to also take the points lead for the first time since his title-winning year.
The 2009 champion made a typically lightning start in the West Surrey Racing BMW 125i from pole position, while team-mate Rob Collard made an equally rapid getaway from fourth to make it a BMW one-two into Old Hall for the first time.
Collard kept within a second of his team-mate for much of the race, but Turkington soon stretched his legs to take the flag over two seconds clear in the team’s first one-two result of the season.
Jason Plato rounded out the podium finishers for the MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save BTCC Team, with Gordon Shedden a lonely fourth in the Yuasa Racing Honda Civic Tourer.
Rob Austin rounded out the top five, the Audi driver having come out on top in a first lap dice with the MG of Sam Tordoff.
Seventh place went the way of the Motorbase Ford Focus of Mat Jackson, the top 10 rounded out by Nick Foster (WSR), Tom Ingram (Speedworks) and Marc Hynes – the latter claiming his first top 10 of the season.
A queue of cars formed behind Foster that extended to 10 cars, Matt Neal making the only overtaking move of the fight on Alain Menu for 13th place heading into Old Hall in the closing laps. The move was however deemed illegal, the pair’s places subsequently switched.
Andrew Jordan was also part of that battle, the championship leader only managing 15th place. The result now means Turkington holds the joint championship lead with Shedden, the Norther Irishman leading through more victories.
Race two gets underway at 14:29, and you can follow all the action from Oulton Park with thecheckeredflag.co.uk.
