Gordon Shedden capped off a steady day of progress through the field by claiming victory in the final Snetterton race in the British Touring Car Championship, inheriting the lead from Pirtek Racing’s Andrew Jordan who suffered technical issues.
Starting on the front row alongside James Cole, the two were both jumped off the line by Jordan, who broke into an assured lead in the early stages. Shedden also made short work of Cole, but was seemingly unable to get ahead of Jordan, whose West Surrey Racing team-mates Colin Turkington and Rob Collard instead began to challenge the Scot for second.
Shedden’s luck turned as Jordan suffered a mechanical problem with only a few laps remaining, his BMW crawling around the Snetterton circuit at a snail’s pace to fall down the order. The Halfords Yuasa Racing driver inherited the lead, and was able to pull away from Collard and Turkington after the WSR pair began to fight with each other for second place. Crossing the line to win, Shedden reclaimed his championship lead over Turkington, heading the Northern Irish driver by two points.
“It (the win) just seemed so unlikely after yesterday,” said Shedden to ITV Sport, “we’ve had our dramas this weekend and we’ve just tried to plug away at it.
“To finish on a win is fantastic, really unexpected – (there was) a lot of pressure from the BMWs, and now we can look ahead to two weeks time in Knockhill!”
Behind Shedden, Collard held from Turkington to claim second place, with Motorbase’s Mat Jackson a distant six seconds behind the front three.
Polesitter Cole got mobbed at the start, but regrouped to follow Jackson home in fifth place while holding off from the rapidly-charging Tom Ingram, who had been stuck behind Jake Hill in the first half of the race.
Hill completed an impressive day by beating race one polesitter Goff to seventh, while both Power Maxed Racing drivers rounded out the top ten, with Senna Proctor holding off from team-mate Tom Chilton at the line.
Eurotech Racing‘s newcomer Brett Smith scored his first BTCC points in an impressive display, climbing up from thirtieth place on the grid to finish fourteenth.
Ashley Sutton – who won both races one and two – was collected on the first lap by an errant Rob Austin at Oggies and retired, his grip on the championship lead lasting just a matter of hours with his inability to score further points. Sutton now drops to fourth in the standings, behind Shedden, Turkington and Collard.
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