Mat Jackson claims honours in race three

Mat Jackson moves into third in the standings with race three victory at Oulton Park. Airwaves Ford rescued their weekend with a final race victory for Jackson, heading home Gordon Shedden and Andrew Jordan to leave Jackson just seven points behind Matt Neal in the championship.

After a disappointing day that had seen a DNF and a ninth place finish, Jackson led almost the entire race to take a comfortable victory, having only been briefly headed by Nick Foster for the opening half of lap one.

In the driest of the day’s three BTCC races, but with damp patches still off line, there was still plenty of action, including clashes between Rob Collard and James Nash, and Collard and Jason Plato.

Collard, who was penalised for contact with Nash in race two, once again came together with Nash on the run up Clay Hill on the opening lap as the pair went side-by-side, resulting in a spin and light contact with the barriers for Nash, who had been leading the Championship going into the third race thanks to Collard’s race two penalty.

Nash recovered to come home 13th, dropping to fourth in the title race, while Collard continued until contact with Plato at Lodge on lap nine sent the BMW tumbling down the order to a 14th place finish.

Collard’s teammate Foster had briefly led proceedings, jumping ahead of Jackson off the start, a position he held until the Airwaves machine bypassed him on the Lakeside straight.

The safety car was out further around the lap, after Paul O’Neill got onto the grass trying to pass Foster at the top of Clay Hill. The Chevrolet driver looked to have corrected his moment, but caught a damp patch sending the purple car spinning backwards between Foster and Shedden and into the Druids tyre wall.

As the safety car withdrew, Jackson comfortably pulled away into a lead he wouldn’t relinquish. Behind Neal moved steadily up the order, passing Collard into Old Hall and then Foster comfortably on the run from the hairpin to the chicane.

Having run in close company for a number of laps, Collard then made his way past Foster at Old Hall, with Plato following him through a corner later. The two then made contact at Lodge, as Plato took the inside line and appeared to be side-by-side with the BMW when the pair touched, with the cars briefly locking together as they slid towards the foot of Dear Leap.

In front the action was coming from Neal catching Jordan, but the Pirtek Racing driver held onto third in the place of stern pressure from the Honda, with both drivers taking to the grass at the chicane as Neal drew alongside, but neither driver could make the corner.

With Nash finishing well down the order, fourth was enough to put Neal back onto the top of the standings, with 103 points, two ahead of Honda teammate Shedden. Jackson, Nash and Plato then sit in the following positions on 96, 95 and 91 points respectively.

After a problematic opening two races, Tom Boardman took fifth, ahead of the Team Aon Ford’s of Andy Neate and Tom Chilton, with Dave Newham, Foster and Jeff Smith rounding out the top ten.