Chilton takes win in race one at Silverstone

Tom Chilton has won the first race at Silverstone, leading a Team Aon 1-2 ahead of team mate Tom Onslow-Cole, and leading Jason Plato in third by almost 3 seconds

Team Aon, despite running changes to their restrictor and turbo boost pressure settings enforced on them by TOCA overnight, took a comfortable victory ahead of the two Chevrolet Cruzes.

Onslow-Cole initially led, and the two Focuses pulled out a small margin on the Cruze of Jason Plato, who had moved ahead of team mate MacDowall.

Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden, in the two Honda Civic’s starting fifth and tenth had terrible first laps however, falling several places, which saw Pirtek’s Andrew Jordan move up to fifth, West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard sixth and Paul O’Neill seventh.

Neal found himself battling the Airwaves BMW’s for most of the race, on lap seven finding himself passed by Steven Kane, before being able to re-pass the BMW with minor contact, but then losing out to the other Airwaves BMW of Mat Jackson.

After a few other battles, Kane won out, and held off Neal to the end for eighth place, whilst Mat Jackson fell back outside of the points to 13th after another run-in with Neal’s Honda.

Gordon Shedden recovered to finish tenth and grab the final point.

The most controversial moment of the race took place on lap twelve, as Tom Onslow-Cole appeared to allow Tom Chilton through into the lead. The move nearly cost Onslow-Cole dearly, as immediately Jason Plato was on top of the Focus and looked set to take second place, but within three laps the Cruze had fallen back and the two Team Aon Focus cars went on to claim a 1-2 finish at the Silverstone circuit.

Tom Onslow-Cole now moves up to joint third in the championship, tied with Honda’s Gordon Shedden, as Plato extends his lead over second placed Matt Neal.