BTCC

Jackson takes second career BTCC win in Race Three at Snetterton

2 Mins read
Jakob Ebrey Photography
Jakob Ebrey Photography

Motorbase Performance‘s Ollie Jackson has claimed a second career British Touring Car Championship victory in Race Three at Snetterton as the title contenders kicked off behind him in a frenetic end to the penultimate weekend.

Despite Chris Smiley starting on pole after being picked out due to the reverse grid draw, Adam Morgan made a super start and was joined by Ollie Jackson and initially Josh Cook but Smiley got back into third.

Jackson took the outside line and into Hamilton, he produced a super move round the outside to take the lead. Further down, Cook and Cammish were battling it out on the opening lap and a bit of contact saw the latter down to tenth and the former with damage down to 11th.

In terms of the Championship, Ash Sutton was up to 5th while Colin Turkington was down in 8th with Tom Ingram up in 7th. Further up, Rory Butcher went into the hairpin and took the outside line to get past Chris Smiley into third position in a great move on Lap 3.  He did almost the same move to attack Adam Morgan but the latter held his own and kept the place.

But while they squabbled at the front, Jackson continued to get away. Further down, Sutton, Turkington and Cammish all were together as they all aimed to get past Smiley.

It was good news for Turkington though as he was only a place behind his main rival into 6th and 7th respectively. Sutton finally got past Smiley but on the straight, Turkington took advantage of them jostling for position to lunge past Sutton who was now behind Cammish. He took the place off Smiley to go into 5th place in a perfect passage of the race for the championship leader.

But this lead was eroded of sorts with Smiley going off which allowed Sutton to go into 6th behind Turkington again. Further up, Jackson’s lead got taken down to only +0.206 from over a second with Morgan and Butcher crawling all over the back of his Ford Focus ST.

But Butcher was putting the pressure on Morgan to take the gap down as he looked for a Motorbase Performance one-two as the race headed into Lap 10/12. Ingram was bringing down the gap though all the time as he looked to tag onto the lead group with a fastest lap showing the pace of the Toyota Corolla.

Jackson completed his defence though to take the chequered flag but it all happened behind him as Butcher fired into Ingram with the former losing control and couldn’t stop the car on the final corner. This allowed Turkington to take advantage and claim the last spot on the podium behind Jackson and Ingram. Sutton went up to 4th place and while Butcher arrested it to finish 5th, Ingram went down to 8th.

As a result heading into the final weekend at Brands Hatch, Turkington is nine points ahead of Sutton making for a neck and neck conclusion to proceedings in the Drivers’ Championship.

It is the latter though who all but claimed the Independents Championship with a maximum of 60 points at Brands Hatch meaning a flawless weekend will be needed by Rory Butcher.

Dan Cammish was 6th, Josh Cook was 7th and Aidan Moffat came from the back into 10th. Senna Proctor, Tom Oliphant, Matt Neal, Michael Crees and Glynn Geddie finished inside the points scorers to finish the weekend.

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Head British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) writer for The Checkered Flag - passionate about Motorsport from a young age, also writes predominately about Darts, Tennis and Basketball for other publications full time.
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