Rob Collard wins Croft Race 2 as leading Subaru pair collide

West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard went from seventh to take victory in the second race of the day at Croft, while the leading pair of Subaru Team BMRs of Jason Plato and Colin Turkington gave away the lead after colliding on lap eight.

Turkington started from pole position, now laden with 75kg of success ballast after his Race 1 victory, and was beaten by Jason Plato to the lead into the first corner, while Rob Collard made a great start from seventh on the grid to be up to fourth.

The safety car made an early but single appearance in the race at the end of lap one, as the #20 Subaru Levorg of James Cole required recovery from Clervaux after going off at the start of the race.

On lap five, Turkington grabbed the lead back from Plato at the Complex in what looked like a coordinate manoeuvre , but three laps later there was drama as Plato tried to repass his team-mate down the inside at Tower, knocking Turkington into a slide. Both drivers were able to continue, but this allowed the BMW of Rob Collard past the pair of them and into the lead, with Plato now second ahead of Turkington, with Jack Goff holding fourth.

Further down the order, the third best-placed of West Surrey Racing’s BMWs was also making good progress. Sam Tordoff, who’d started 13th, was picking his way up the order. His last few key passes were on his championship rival Matt Neal on lap 13 for ninth, overtaking the Honda driver down the straight with a move he’d replicate one lap later to pass Andrew Jordan’s Ford Focus.

On lap 15, he tried the same move on the Speedworks Toyota of Tom Ingram, but to no avail. Tordoff then had one last try to pass the Toyota at the final turn, the Hairpin, but made contact with the rear of Ingram’s AVensis, damaging the front bodywork on his 125i, and had to settle for eighth.

This was enough to grab him back the lead of the championship from Matt Neal, and is now leading by two points, while Rob Collard’s win puts him firmly in the hunt, seven points behind, while Jack Goff moves up to fourth in the drivers’ standings.

The third race of the day follows at 17:05 BST with the reversed grid draw of eight putting Sam Tordoff on pole position ahead of Ingram and Jackson.