Colin Turkington takes sensational win in Race 2 to keep title open

West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington put on one of the drives of the year to take his BMW 125i M Sport from 15th to first in the second race at Brands Hatch, and with Team BMR’s Ash Sutton 12th, decimates Sutton’s championship lead to six points with one race remaining.

The Mercedes A-Class of Aiden Moffat started from pole courtesy of having won Race 1, and led the way through Paddock Hill bend, while championship leader Ash Sutton had a poor start from third and slipped to sixth behind Mat Jackson’s Ford and the two Vauxhalls of Tom Chilton and Senna Proctor.

Turkington was up to 12th by the end of the first lap in his BMW, running the favoured soft tyres, and was quickly charging through the field.

Outgoing champion Gordon Shedden passed Sutton’s Subaru for sixth on lap five, while the championship leader was clearly struggling for pace on the harder tyres.

Two laps later, and Sutton slipped behind Neal’s Honda, while the Subaru driver lost eighth to Turkington’s BMW at Druids at the start of lap eight, as the BMW driver quickly pulled away, having set the fastest lap of the race.

The Northern Irishman passed Tom Chilton’s Vauxhall before the end of the lap, before passing Neal’s Team Dynamics Honda at Surtees one lap later.

Turkington then passed Ingram’s Speedworks Toyota before the end of the lap, and then repeated his Surtees pass on Shedden’s Honda at Surtees on lap ten.

Sutton then made some progress, moving back up to seventh ahead of Chilton’s Vauxhall, while Turkington dived down the inside of Mat Jackson’s Motorbase Ford, also on the soft tyres, at Paddock Hill to take second, and then closed on Aiden Moffat’s Mercedes.

The pass for the lead happened one lap later, with Turkington tapping the rear of Moffat’s Mercedes, unsettling him on the way through the corner, and took the lead, followed by the two Hondas of Shedden and Neal.

Meanwhile, Sutton began to struggle and dropped to 12th, while Turkington went on to take the win and take the maximum points haul of 22 including the fastest lap point to reduce the points lead to just six points ahead of the final race.

The result also secured BMW the manufacturers’ title, while Tom Ingram and Speedworks have now secured the independent drivers’ and teams’ titles with one race to go, leaving the main drivers’ title as the only award left.

The reversed grid draw was for the full top ten, which puts Team HARD’s Michael Epps on pole, with Turkington starting tenth, just two spots ahead of his rival Sutton, and needs to outscore the Subaru driver by seven points in Race 3 in order to secure his third title.

“It was amazing. I wasn’t expecting to make that much progress,” said Turkington. “The strategy was really good, I missed out in Race 1, but on the soft tyre the 1 Series was blinding.

“It’s just grip, and the warmer part of the day. Once you make a few passes, you get a bit of confidence and we were strong on the right areas,” he added. “It was one of the best, that was.”

The final race of the day is scheduled for 17:14 BST.