Ebay Motors driver Colin Turkington showed his prowess in the BMW 125i once
again at Knockhill in the latest round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car
Championship.
The 2009 champion qualified 2nd for the first race of the day, behind the
incredibly quick Audi of Rob Austin, and managed to squeeze past the Wix Racing
driver to take the top spot of the podium in race 1, a feat he repeated in race
2, sharing the podium with Austin, who took a 3rd and 2nd place respectively,
and Knockhill's very own Gordon Shedden.
These results meant that Turkington closed the gap at the top to 30 points -
although he had scored a 4th place finish in race 3, but was later disqualified
due to a technical infringement. Despite this though, the former champion is
showing that the car is very strong in his hands, and with 9 races still to go,
there's every chance that the Northern Irishman could make a last ditch title
challenge.
Aside from Turkington's dominance in Scotland, it was a fairly quit weekend
for the Honda Yuasa Racing duo. As mentioned before, local hero Shedden scored
two podium finishes, but his weekend came to an abrupt halt in the final race
of the day after his Honda Civic caught fire. Shedden's team mate and current
championship leader Matt Neal also had a relatively quiet weekend, finishing
within the top 10 in the first two races and taking a 2nd place finish in race
3.
The MG KX Momentum Racing team also had a fairly fruitless weekend, with neither
Jason Plato nor Sam Tordoff scoring many points over the course of the weekend,
something which later lead to Plato writing off his title chances for this
year. Don't discount him yet though, Plato is renowned for making late
comebacks, and he is still mathematically within a shout of clinching the
drivers crown yet.
Andrew Jordan's win in the final race of the day kept him firmly up towards
the top of the championship, with the gap between him and Neal being just 6
points - no doubt that AJ has certainly got his eyes on the driver's crown too.
With nine rounds left of the BTCC, there is still plenty of time for things
to change in terms of the standings. The drivers know that all too well, and
I'm sure they will be doing all they can to rack up as many points as possible
towards the closing stages of the season.
Photo credit: Phil Laughton Photography