Gordon Shedden claimed his first win of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season in an incident-packed second race of the day at Brands Hatch.
Just like in race one, drama was to strike early as the lights went out. Contact with the Honda of Matt Simpson sent the Subaru Levorg of Jason Plato spearing head-on into the pit wall, red flags waved to remove the stricken car of the double champion who emerged seemingly unscathed.
Further incidents broke out in the opening three corners, Jack Goff sent into a spin at Druids after contact with the Team BMW entry of Rob Collard. A corner later, the AmDTuning Audi S3 of rookie Ant Whorton-Eales was also tipped into a spin.
On the restart it was Tom Ingram – hampered on the first start by mechanical dramas himself – who again made the best start from pole position, but it lasted just one lap as Shedden’s Civic lunged inside the Toyota Avensis at Clearways to grab the lead.
The man on a charge was the recovering Collard meanwhile. The restart giving him a second wind, the Team BMW 125i carved through to sixth at the start before disposing of Adam Morgan at Clearways and Rob Austin at Paddock Hill Bend.
Next on his list to pick off was Pirtek Racing-backed team-mate Andrew Jordan, making the move at Paddock Hill Bend before a safety car interruption to remove Whorton-Eales’ Audi from the gravel – victim of an incident between Luke Davenport and Daniel Lloyd at Clearways.
Shedden continued to lead on the restart, but Collard was soon up to second after squeezing inside the Toyota of Ingram into the first corner once again on lap 20. Try as he might, Collard could not prevent Shedden from taking victory, despite trimming the gap to 0.870s at the flag.
The fight for third became more intense, Ingram holding on while Jordan was eased aside by Austin’s Avensis at Clearways. Ingram held on ahead of Austin and Morgan, Mat Jackson‘s Ford Focus making its way by Jordan’s BMW on the final lap.
Josh Cook kept out of trouble for an impressive eighth for Maximum Motorsport, Tom Chilton putting Power Maxed Racing‘s Vauxhall Astra into the top 10 while Colin Turkington recovered to 10th place from 32nd and last on the grid.
Turkington’s 10th place came at the expense of Michael Epps, out-dragging the Team HARD Volkswagen CC on the run to the flag. Ashley Sutton was one of the seven retirements, joined by Aiden Moffat after the pair suffered an off late in the race.
The top eight finishers will be reversed for race three, Cook promoted to pole position ahead of Jordan.