Happy holidays for series leader Colin Turkington

Championship leader Colin Turkington says he’s happy to be going on his holidays in the best possible shape, but says there is a “misconception” about the advantage his West Surrey Racing squad has.

A pole and two wins were the reward for a Croft weekend where Turkington showed dominant pace throughout, but the 2009 champion dropped out of the final race with clutch failure – which he says is the legacy of the longer first gear the BMW 125i now runs.

Turkington goes into the summer break leading Honda Racing Team’s Gordon Shedden by seven points, with the series set to return at Snetterton on the first weekend in August.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Turkington said: “It’s been a great day for me. A pole and two wins is not easily done. The car has been performing really strongly.

“I go away happy, but a tad disappointed that we didn’t make the finish in race three. But that’s motorsport – you can’t always expect it to go your way.

“Race one when the start was aborted, the red lights stayed on for a long time and it put too much heat into the clutch. That combined with the longer first gear has just been too much for the clutch to handle.

“I had a brand new clutch for this weekend, and I’ve smoked it. That’s a bit of a concern.

“We’ve no experience with this longer first gear, and it’s cost us a good finish. But on the flip side, I can be thankful it didn’t happen earlier in the day. It’s the ups and downs of racing.”

Addressing the issue of the perceived advantage his car has, Turkington added: “The car has excelled on the tracks we usually excel at, so the interesting thing will be to see how good we are on the rest of the circuits.

“It’s a tough series and nobody ever runs away with it. There’s a misconception we have some sort of an advantage at the moment, but we have just capitalised where the car is strong, like the others did at the start of the season.

“It’s really nice to go on holidays in such good shape. We have put a really good first half of the season together, and it shows we’ve done a really good job.

“We’ll keep working hard and try and come back just as strong.”

Points updated following penalties/promotions for Gordon Shedden, Mat Jackson and Sam Tordoff following race three