Last gasp Turkington snatches victory
Colin Turkington denied race one winner Fabrizio Giovanardi a double victory at Thruxton, snatching the lead on the final lap to take his first win of 2009, in Round Five of the BTCC. Heading into the final lap, Turkington was in the middle of a Vauxhall sandwich, with Giovanardi ahead and Matt Neal behind, but the Italian ran wide in the Complex allowing the BMW to get a good run out of the corner and sweep past into the lead.
Until then Giovanardi had led the entire race, making another excellent start to convert pole position in the race lead, with Neal just managing to hold off a fast starting Turkington as the pair ran side by side through the first corner.
An early safety car after Dan Eaves went off at the first corner, bunched the field back up, but once again the two Vauxhall’s led away at the re-start, with Turkington close behind Neal.
The leading trio soon pulled away into the distance, with the third Vectra of Andrew Jordan back in fourth heading a long line of six cars led by Stephen Jelley.
Behind Jelley came Paul O’Neill, with his Honda Integra perfectly suited to the demands of the Thruxton circuit. A repeat of his fifth position in Round Four was rendered impossible however when he, Jason Plato and Adam Jones ran three abreast into the Complex on lap twelve.
Turning in, O’Neill was nudged wide, as Plato came up his inside, into the path of Jones’ SEAT, which spun the Integra to the outside of the circuit, dropping him down the order.
Ahead Jelley looked quicker than Jordan, having already tried to find a way past the Vauxhall at Noble on a previous tour, when the two went side by side through Noble, the result being a spinning Vectra as Jordan was forced wide and ran out of road, sending his car across the grass.
At the front Giovanardi was struggling with tyre problems, allowing Neal and Turkington to close up onto his rear bumper. Neal found himself trying to fend off the attentions of the BMW, while trying not to run into his teammate ahead, a situation that eventually led to him running wide on lap fifteen and losing momentum on the exit of Goodwood.
The Team RAC car of Turkington immediately closed onto the back of Giovanardi, patiently shadowing the Italian closely until the final run through the Complex. The smallest of errors by Giovanardi allowed Turkington to pounce, utilising the BMW’s superior traction on the exit of the corner to power past.
Speaking after the race, Turkington praised his car’s “spot on” tyre balance, saying, “It’s incredible. I knew my car was very good over the 16 laps and we talked about just waiting and waiting, and it just played into my hands.
I was struggling to keep up early on, but in last few laps I just had the edge. I was going to settle for second, but then the opportunity knocks and you have to pounce.”
Behind the leading trio Jelley secured fourth, someway ahead of Rob Collard, Jason Plato and James Thompson, while back in tenth was the unlucky O’Neill, who was subsequently drawn out of the hat, by Team RAC boss Dick Bennetts, to be on pole position for this afternoon’s final race, ahead of Matt Jackson, Jones and Thompson.
Stay tuned for coverage of race three later on.
