Gordon Shedden opens seasonal account in race two
Gordon Shedden secured his first win of the BTCC season with a hard fought victory in the second race of the weekend at Brands Hatch.
As in the opening encounter earlier in the day, there was drama at the start after contact between Jason Plato and Matt Simpson resulted in Plato’s Subaru spearing into the pit wall – bringing out the red flag and forcing the race to be restarted.
That worked against a number of drivers – including a fast-starting Andrew Jordan – but also benefitted others, including pole-sitter Tom Ingram who had been set to serve a drive through penalty after a mechanical problem that forced the initial start to be aborted.
It also saved Jack Goff, who had been tipped into a spin at Druids that dropped him down the order.
When Plato’s damaged Subaru was removed from the grid and the clean-up completed, the field lined up in it’s original positions, with Ingram leading Shedden away from the lights.
The Honda man wouldn’t take long to get ahead however, moving into top spot on the second lap and then staying out front all the way to the flag.
That was despite a later Safety Car period to remove the AmDTuning.com Audi of Ant Whorton-Eales from the gravel after the reigning Clio Cup champion was caught up in an incident ahead of him on track.
Ingram, still suffering with illness, would maintain second for much of the race before eventually succumbing to pressure from Rob Collard behind, with the BMW man having replicated his performance in race one with another storming drive through the field for his first podium of the year.
Ingram took third place in his Speedworks-run Toyota, with Rob Austin crossing the line in fourth although it remains to be seen if he will keep his position after a move on Andrew Jordan at Clearways when yellow flags appeared to be flying after a clash between Ash Sutton and Aiden Moffat saw them go off in the gravel.
Adam Morgan would pass Jordan at the same time to take fifth spot, with Mat Jackson then passing the Pirtek-backed BMW on the run to the line on the final lap to secure sixth.
Jordan had to settle for seventh ahead of Josh Cook’s Ford Focus, which will start race three from pole.
Tom Chilton and Colin Turkington rounded out the top ten, the latter after a storming drive through the field from the back of the grid following his race one clash with Matt Neal – who would take the flag in twelfth.
