Rob Collard made it five wins from five Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship races in 2016, fighting to race two success at Donington Park.
Collard fought his way past erstwhile leader Mat Jackson in an interrupted second encounter at the Leicester circuit, ensuring a first win for the West Surrey Racing team in 2016.
The latter once again made a sublime start in the Motorbase Performance Ford, this time from pole position, Tom Ingram taking advantage of a slow-starting Josh Cook to move into second by Redgate.
A safety car was again deployed after one lap, Ollie Jackson tapped into the turn one gravel trap after contact from Alex Martin sent Rob Austin‘s Toyota Avensis into the AmDTuning Audi S3. Kelvin Fletcher was another lap one retirement, beached in the same Redgate gravel trap.
On the restart, Jackson continued to lead the way, but was given more breathing space by a second safety car intervention to remove Colin Turkington‘s stricken Team BMR Subaru Levorg, tapped into a spin at the final chicane.
Jackson was untroubled up front on the next restart initially, sustaining pressure initially from Ingram who soon dropped back in a feisty final nine laps. Collard moved his West Surrey Racing BMW 125i up to second on lap 12 at the final chicane, before moving into the lead three laps later as he slid inside the Focus of Jackson at the same corner.
Collard took the flag 1.6s ahead of Jackson for victory, the latter moving two points clear into the championship lead.
Ingram’s battle for third with Jack Goff saw the pair swap places at Redgate and Old Hairpin on lap 13, their dice allowing Aron Smith to poke his Team BKR Volkswagen CC inside both heading into the final chicane, Ingram and Goff making contact on the exit to drop the Toyota back further to 15th.
Smith joined Collard and Jackson on the podium, fending off the Halfords Yuasa Racing Honda Civic Type-R of Gordon Shedden, while Goff rounded out the top five ahead of Matt Neal (Honda), Cook (MG), Sam Tordoff (BMW), Aiden Moffat (Mercedes) and Austin.
Ashley Sutton slipped to 13th in the second Triple Eight MG, while Warren Scott was top Subaru in 19th ahead of Jason Plato.
Race three of the day gets underway at 17:17, and you can keep up with all the action right here and via@TheCheckerFlag on Twitter.
