Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Gallagher finally broke their Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship victory duck last weekend when their driver Tom Chilton crossed the line in first at Knockhill in the reverse grid race.
Chilton scored his first victory in the series since the third race at Silverstone in 2011. This victory meant that Tom made up for race three disappointment at Rockingham last time out and also became the fourteenth different winner in the BTCC in 2018. A new record.
Victory seemed distant at the start of the weekend as Tom qualified his Ford Focus RS in fifteenth. This was despite being just half a second off of pole position.
Atrocious conditions greeted all the drivers on Sunday, therefore the formbook was thrown out of the window and an opportunity to gain valuable points were anybodies.
Race one saw the number three Focus finish in twelfth and score four points in very difficult conditions. Whilst race two saw slight improvement and an eighth place finish in a shortened race. This also meant that Tom would be in the reverse grid draw for race three.
Tom leads the way at the start of race three Credit: Matt Sayle
As both Ashley Sutton and Tom Ingram were excluded from the race two results, Tom was promoted to sixth in race two where he also inheirited pole position for race three.
Whilst thoughts of what happened at Rockingham may have flooded back, Tom was out there to make sure it didn’t happen again.
A scorching start meant that in the opening laps, Tom maintained a healthy gap between himself and Adam Morgan in second. Colin Turkington soon replaced the Mercedes-Benz in the chase and this was where Tom earnt victory with a controlled defensive drive.
Pushing where he knew he could push and making any overtaking opportunity at the hairpin impossible, Tom crossed the line victorious taking Motorbase’s first victory in over a year and also victory for the Ford Focus RS in its début year.
Tom was in no doubt that victory was his in race three,
“I knew I had to get the perfect start because I had Turkington behind me in the RWD drive and I did!
“Thankfully I didn’t make the same mistake from Rockingham and I kept the lead for the whole race. I knew that I had the car underneath me and with the experience from all of my years racing here it paid off. It was a really big fight at the end, with Turkington coming through but we had such a good car.
“All credit to the team giving me the car to do the job. Starting from 15th on the grid was tough but it just shows you that if you keep your nose clean and with a little bit of luck you can come through to take a win.”
