Oulton race 1: Shedden wins

Scotland’s Gordon Shedden has won the first of today’s (Sunday) Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship rounds at the Oulton Park circuit in Cheshire.

Shedden, driving a Team Halfords Honda Civic, overtook early leader Colin Turkington’s Team RAC BMW and from there drew clear to become the sixth different winner so far this season.

Finishing second – and in the process becoming the new championship leader – was Vauxhall’s Italian driver Fabrizio Giovanardi. Turkington, who had started from pole position and also set the race’s fastest lap, finished third.

SEAT’s Jason Plato, who had led the championship, finished back in seventh and as a result has slipped to second in the standings, six points behind Giovanardi ahead of this afternoon’s second race out of three.

Elsewhere, Tom Onslow-Cole forced his way up to a fine ninth after starting 18th following a qualifying crash in his Team RAC BMW. En route, his car and the Air Cool SEAT Toledo of Adam Jones made contact and the latter ran off the track and into retirement from what would have been a points finish.

Meanwhile, SEAT’s Darren Turner saw his run of recent success come to an end when his Leon was eliminated in a collision with Dave Pinkney’s A-Tech Alfa Romeo at island hairpin.

Matt Allison, holding 11th position in his Motorbase SEAT Toledo, then crashed heavily at Druids. But at least his team-mate Gareth Howell salvaged a point in tenth, rewarding his mechanics who had rapidly changed one of his car’s driveshafts prior to the start after it broke on the way to the starting grid.