Photo: TCR UK

Carl Boardley staves off Hutchison attack to win race two at Croft

By

CBM with Hart GT’s Carl Boardley withstood a late challenge from Brad Hutchison to take victory in the second TCR UK race at Croft.

The defending series champion, at the wheel of his Cupra León Competición, started seventh in the reversed-grid race but quickly made inroads amid yet more torrential rain at the North Yorkshire track.

Boardley made his way into the lead after barging past erstwhile leader Bradley Thurston at Sunny In but was chased down in the closing minutes by Hutchison’s similar Cupra.

Race one winner Callum Newsham (JH Racing) finished fourth on the road but was promoted to third after a five-second track limits time penalty bumped Darron Lewis off the podium.

Stewart Lines had been expected to start race two from pole position but an issue to his Hyundai off the dummy grid meant he started from the pits, with Thurston taking an early lead from Steve Laidlaw.

Unfortunately, Laidlaw’s race unravelled early as he pitted with a problem, having fallen behind Boardley at Tower. Boardley wasted little time in getting into the lead but got caught out by Thurston slowing at Sunny In.

Slight contact was made and Boardley was through, with Lewis moving up to second ahead of Thurston down the inside of Tower.

Lewis seemed to have more pace than Boardley in the lead and began to close the gap to just over a second before the Hyundai driver was handed a post-race time penalty.

Hutchison had struggled in the early stages but found pace towards the end, and grabbed third place from Newsham after a strong drive out of the final corner.

The Cupra driver then completed a superb late-braking move on the inside of Clervaux on Lewis before taking up the chase of Boardley in the lead.

Hutchison didn’t have enough left in the tank and was 2.716s shy of Boardley at the line, with Newsham profiting from Lewis’ penalty to take the final step on the podium in third.

Behind Lewis came Sam Laidlaw and Thurston, while Mark Smith finished seventh ahead of Will Beech.

Rick Kerry and Lines completed the top 10.

The final TCR UK race of the weekend is scheduled to take place later on today at 17:30 BST.