Team GardX Racing with Motorbase driver Sam Tordoff has finally scored victory in the 2018 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship following a lights to flag drive at Silverstone.
Tordoff headed a Motorbase one-two as team-mate Tom Chilton pushed him all the way in the final laps of the race. Despite no team orders on the drivers, the formation flying shown highlighted the strong package that the Ford Focus RS is to these top drivers.
Third went to an ecstatic Ricky Collard who despite dropping down the order at the start, managed to work his way into fourth before inheriting the final podium position when fellow BMW racer Andrew Jordan pulled into the pits due to a loss of power.
In the opening laps, a couple of incidents took place when Rob Austin was tipped into a spin entering Maggotts before sliding across the grass and wiping out the Halfords Yuasa Racing Honda Civic Type R of Matt Neal. A scene similar to the Rob Collard, Andrew Jordan and Will Burns incident of last year. But, less destructive.
Josh Cook ended up beached in the gravel Brooklands later on in the lap which brought out the safety car.
Championship hopefuls Colin Turkington, Tom Ingram and Ashley Sutton had to race hard to capitalise on lowly grid positions.
Turkington had the best race out of the three as he jumped from eighteenth to finish eighth at the flag. Sutton had quite an action packed race as he forced his way through the field to take eleventh whilst Tom Ingram had the tough race to take a solitary point in fifteenth.
Both Subaru drivers had incidents within a corner of each other on lap fourteen. As Sutton inadvertently took out James Cole through Luffield, just behind them Jason Plato made contact with the Team HARD Volkswagen of Bobby Thompson. Plato was then forced to pull off the circuit when his bonnet flew up to block his view.
As the two Focus’ up front drove superbly, the main battle was between the drivers in eighth to thirteenth. Turkington, Tom Oliphant, Dan Cammish, Ashley Sutton, Rory Butcher and Brett Smith were all dicing for position in the final few laps keeping the ITV4 cameras on their story.
Jack Goff took a great fourth place ahead of former team-mate Matt Simpson in fifth. Adam Morgan was the best Mercedes-Benz in sixth and Mike Bushell fought through the field to take seventh.
