Mat Jackson took Motorbase Performance‘s first win since Silverstone 2012 in the second Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race at Knockhill, while championship leader Colin Turkington charged from the back to fourth.
Jackson took advantage 0f several first lap scenarios taking place, the first being Matt Neal making a jump start as he crept from pole position, earning the Honda Yuasa Racing man a drive-through penalty.
Neal held fellow front row starter Rob Austin at bay into turn one as the Audi A4 ran wide, further chaos erupting as he re-joined at Scotsman corner. Gordon Shedden looked to have inherited the place behind his team-mate heading into the right-hander, but contact from Austin as the Audi squeezed Jackson resulted in Shedden’s Honda being turned around in a similar incident to the one involving Turkington, Jackson and Plato in race one.
Behind them was a dramatic shunt as Warren Scott entered the corner backwards, slamming into team-mate Jack Goff which resulted in a safety car interruption.
Turkington restarted 16th, and his recovery drive was another major story of the remainder of the race alongside Jackson’s lights-to-flag victory after Neal took his penalty.
Jackson finally took a well-deserved first win of 2014 for himself and the Kent Motorbase squad, taking the flag 1.6s clear of Triple Eight‘s Jason Plato who kept calm under pressure from the Audi of Austin – the latter claiming his second podium of the day.
Behind, Turkington was up into 13th place after one lap of the restart, before scything past the Ford of Jack Clarke and the BMR Volkswagen of Alain Menu in one lap.
His WSR team-mate Nick Foster was next on his list, who moved over respectfully before the Northern Irishman then quickly dispatched both Fabrizio Giovanardi at Clark and then BMR’s Aron Smith on the main straight on lap 15 of the 25-lapper.
Dave Newsham‘s AmD Tuning Ford Focus was then easy meat as Turkington also took a point for fastest lap, before the championship leader quickly powered past Tom Ingram with great traction coming out of the final hairpin.
Turkington’s drive was made more remarkable by the fact he made zero contact with any of his rivals along the way, completing the drive to fourth place by swiftly passing team-mate Rob Collard entering Clark on lap 23 before taking just one more bend to usurp Adam Morgan of fourth.
That was where he stayed, extending his championship lead while Shedden could only recover to 12th place after recovering from his first-lap skirmish.
Behind fifth-placed Collard, the top 10 was rounded out by Morgan, Ingram, Newsham, Giovanardi and Foster, the latter involved in a collision with Smith’s Volkswagen that ended in the Irishman heading hard into the barriers on the run to the flag.
Foster ironically then went on to be drawn onto pole position for the final race of the day, where he’ll start alongside the second Motorbase Ford of Giovanardi.
Martin Depper was another to meet the tyre wall, shunting after losing control of the Pirtek Racing Honda Civic coming out of Clark. His team-mate Andrew Jordan meanwhile narrowly missed out on the top 10 himself, finishing 11th overall from the rear of the field.
