Ash Sutton scores his sixth win of 2017 in Rockingham Race 2
Ash Sutton further extended his championship lead after winning the second race of the day at Rockingham, while Gordon Shedden’s championship challenge has started to collapse after a second DNF in two races.
James Cole started from pole position after winning Race 1 in his Subaru Levorg GT, with Sutton alongside, but while Sutton kept to the outside, Jack Goff made a lunge into Turn 1 in his Eurotech Honda and grabbed second from the Subaru driver, only to be baulked by Cole into Deene hairpin, allowing Sutton to go around the outside and take both positions.
Josh Cook was able able to get ahead of Goff and was up to third in his Triple Eight MG, and then took second from Cole at the hairpin on the second lap, while Cole then ran wide and plummeted to seventh, just ahead of Colin Turkington’s BMW.
The safety car was soon out on lap three, as Gordon Shedden stopped out on circuit at Yentwood after contact at the hairpin with Rob Austin’s Toyota Avensis. The Honda driver had front-right suspension damage and was unable to continue, his second DNF of the weekend.
When the safety car came in, it was Shedden’s team-mate Matt Neal who was making moves, passing Goff’s Honda at Deene for fourth on lap seven.
A lap later and there was trouble further ahead, as Motorbase Ford driver Mat Jackson made a move on Josh Cook’s MG at Deene hairpin, with the two drivers making side-by-side contact. Cook then ran into Jackson at Yentwood, pushing him out wide and allowing Neal through into third.
Neal was quick to attack Cook, making a lunge at Deene, but the two made contact and went wide, falling to the back of the pack, with Jackson now back up to second.
As the race went on, the tyres began to drop off the front-wheel drive entries, with Turkington now making fast progress after he finally passed James Cole on lap ten.
Turkington closed down and passed Adam Morgan’s Mercedes and Jack Goff’s Honda over the course of two laps, and then caught up to Jackson’s Ford in the closing stages of the race.
Sutton was unchallenged up front and won the race by almost three seconds from Jackson, with Turkington scoring vital points in third.
Jason Plato made late-race progress to grab fourth from Goff, with Morgan finishing sixth.
The two West Surrey Racing BMWs of Andrew Jordan and Rob Collard followed, with Tom Ingram finishing ninth in his Toyota after starting dead-last on the grid, with Chris Smiley completing the top ten in his BTC Racing Chevrolet.
The top seven have been reversed by random draw for Race 3, which puts West Surrey Racing’s Andrew Jordan on pole for the final race at 16:40 BST.
