Colin Turkington made it two wins from two at Snetterton in a frenetic second Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race of the day in Norfolk.
The 12-lap encounter was again dominated from lights-to-flag by the reigning champion, while Adam Morgan moved crucially up into second spot after front row starter Sam Tordoff fluffed his getaway.
The latter’s West Surrey Racing team-mate Rob Collard endured another first corner to forget, spun out in a collision towards the rear of the field that also involved Barry Horne and Stewart Lines.
Further first lap carnage more dramatically effectively eliminated the Honda Yuasa Racing squad, contact between the pair seeing former championship leader Gordon Shedden fired right into the barriers across Matt Neal‘s front bumper heading into Agostini’s.
The suspension damage put the 2012 champion out of the race, while Neal continued but was eventually forced to retire with severe front end damage.
Turkington up front was untroubled on his way to a 3.140s victory, beating a defensive Morgan who held onto second place ahead of Andy Priaulx. Jason Plato made it two Team BMR cars in the top four, after cutting inside Tordoff’s BMW heading into Williams Bend on lap seven.
Jack Goff and Andrew Jordan were next up for Triple Eight, while Mat Jackson broke into the top 10 for Motorbase Performance ahead of Rob Austin‘s Audi A4 and an impressive Mike Bushell, the AmD Tuning man having started 18th.
James Cole was a solid 11th for Motorbase, while Barry Horne secured a fantastic result of 13th in his second BTCC race ahead of Robb Holland and Derek Palmer Jr, both picking up their first points of the season.
Nic Hamilton narrowly missed out on the points in 16th, while Eurotech endured a difficult encounter after Martin Depper and Jeff Smith collided battling in the congested pack.
There was another incident early in the race that saw Aron Smith’s VW squeezed out of the race and Dave Newsham also spinning out of contention, while Tom Ingram lost out on another good result to a last lap puncture.
Goff will start from pole position for the final race of the day, the top six cars reversed from race two’s results.
Race three gets underway at 16:57, and you can keep up with the action here at www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk, or via Twitter at @tcfBTCC.
