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Colin Turkington wins delayed Brands Hatch opener

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Colin Turkington took victory in the opening BTCC race of the weekend at Brands Hatch, which would feature a red flag of almost an hour after an incident on the opening lap.

The initial start saw Colin Turkington make the best start to jump ahead of Dan Cammish off the line, with a fine start from Ash Sutton seeing him go round the outside of Jake Hill at Druids before then taking second from Cammish at Surtees.

However, as the field came out of the final corner, contact between Dan Rowbottom and Stephen Jelley saw Jelley’s BMW turned into the pitwall before it came back across the circuit – being tapped again by Rowbotton who was then collected by Andrew Watson’s Vauxhall.

Adam Morgan would also go off into the gravel with all four drivers out of the race and the action halted to allow the damaged cars to be recovered and for safety teams to replace damaged barriers along the pit wall.

After a lengthy delay, the grid was reformed in the original positions for the restart and Turkington once again took the lead off the start with Hill and Sutton both getting ahead of Cammish in through turn one.

Sutton then cleared Hill going into Paddock Hill Bend at the start of lap two and was followed through by Cammish to leave the two Fords running in second and third.

Although Sutton tried to pressure Turkington early on, the BMW was able to ease away to take the win with Sutton and Cammish rounding out the podium and Hill left in what would be a lonely fourth place.

Rory Butcher looked good for fifth for most of the race but ever-increasing pressure from Tom Ingram saw the defending champion manage to get ahead on lap 16 when he dived down the inside at Paddock Hill Bend.

Bobby Thompson then followed him through a lap later to grab sixth spot, leaving Butcher back in P7 ahead of Cook, Ricky Collard and Dan Lloyd – the latter pair swapping places late on at Druids.

Elsewhere, Donington race winner Tom Chilton was forced to start from the pits due to a gear issue but came through the pack to grab a points finish in 15th spot.