Rob Collard secures West Surrey Racing clean sweep at Croft

Rob Collard made it a West Surrey Racing clean sweep at Croft with victory in the final race of the day, leading home another one-two ahead of Andy Priaulx, after both passed Honda Racing Team’s Gordon Shedden in the closing stages.

In a classic race three encounter, Shedden passed Priaulx on the opening lap and Collard on lap three, but as his soft tyres faded, he was passed for the lead by Collard on lap 12 and Priaulx at the final corner of the final lap.

There were incidents aplenty in the final race before the long summer break, with the Team BMR pair of Colin Turkington and Jason Plato keeping their noses clean to complete the top five.

Sam Tordoff rounded off a great weekend in sixth ahead of Tom Ingram, Jack Goff and Matt Neal, with Warren Scott taking his best finish of the season in 10th.

There was drama from the first corner, when Collard led away from pole and was followed by Priaulx into Clervaux. Shedden quickly repassed Priaulx into the chicane and went after Collard, who he passed brilliantly into the Esses on lap three after half a lap of fierce battling.

Andrew Jordan’s miserable weekend got worse on the same lap, when he pitted his crabbing Triple Eight Racing MG with suspension damage, before Team Parker Racing’s Alex Martin had a big off on lap six while dicing with Aron Smith and Aiden Moffat.

Rob Austin was another casualty when he retired in the pits on lap eight with front end damage, a legacy of a first lap incident with Ingram.

Up front, Shedden was unable to get away from the hard tyre-shod BMW, and Collard managed to make his move stick into the chicane on lap 12.

Priaulx then spent the final two tours crawling all over the back of the Honda, and had grip to spare to pass Shedden around the outside of the hairpin on the final lap.

Despite the late setbacks, it is Shedden who maintains the championship lead ahead of the summer break, with the series returning to action at Snetterton on August 8 and 9.