Mat Jackson takes dominant lights-to-flag victory at Silverstone

Motorbase Performance’s Mat Jackson took a dominant lights-to-flag victory in the first race at Silverstone ahead of Triple Eight Racing’s Andrew Jordan, with Honda Yuasa Racing’s Gordon Shedden extending his championship lead in third as Jason Plato retired.

Jackson was never troubled after making a clean start in his Ford Focus ST, extending his lead to 1.8 seconds by the end of the first lap as Jordan, Shedden and Sam Tordoff battled for position behind him.

The soft tyre-shod Jordan was able to force his MG 6 past Shedden’s Honda Civic at Becketts on the second lap, and held on at the end as Shedden closed in on the standard compound.

The Scotsman now has a 21 point lead in the standings, after Team BMR’s Plato retired from 11th with a front-left puncture on the penultimate lap.

Behind the top three, Power Maxed Racing’s Dave Newsham had his best race of the year in fourth, just behind Jordan and Shedden, with the Team BMR pair of Colin Turkington and Aron Smith next up.

Rob Collard, Matt Neal, Tom Ingram and Tordoff completed the top 10, with Ingram forcing his way past Tordoff in the closing stages as the BMW 125i faded on its soft tyres.

It was a slightly unusual race, with the likes of Jack Goff, Hunter Abbott and Andy Priaulx all sacrificing track position in the chase of a fast lap time for the second race.

Plato had an entertaining battle with West Surrey Racing’s Collard for 10th before his problems, while AmD Tuning’s Nic Hamilton and Eurotech Racing’s Jeff Smith had spectacular spins at the end of the Wellington Straight.