Adam Morgan takes win in dramatic red flagged race one
Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan became the first driver to take two BTCC victories in 2016 after a frantic first race at Thruxton ended early after a huge incident on the start/finish straight.
The race began with Honda’s Matt Neal jumping to the top of the field off the line, despite carrying 75kg of weight ballast, keeping Tom Ingram behind in second.
Aiden Moffat, who started from the front row for the first time of his BTCC career in his Mercedes A-Class, suffered a terrible opening lap, going off at the complex and plummeting down the order.
The action continued on the next lap as Ashley Sutton’s Triple Eight MG6 went into the barriers at Goodwood, while Moffat, who had clawed his way back up the order, battled with the Toyota of Speedworks driver Tom Ingram for fourth place.
Adam Morgan then began his charge, working his way up from fifth to take the lead on lap five at the front of a huge group of at least six cars all vying for the same patch of tarmac. Moffat continued his fight back, taking second place from Matt Neal a lap later.
It all went downhill from lap ten onwards, however, as Moffat went straight on at the complex for the second time, this time for a left-front puncture. His tyre giving way was the first of many, with Motorbase Performance’s Mat Jackson and Team BKR VW driver Mark Howard also losing their left-front on the same lap.
Matt Neal suffered the same fate a lap later, with his tyre giving way on the entry to the chicane, and leaving him stranded on the outside of the circuit as he attempted to make his way to the pits. As he tried to get across he was collected by Josh Cook’s MG, which resulted in a number of cars being collected, including the Honda of Gordon Shedden, the Team Hard Toyota of Jake Hill and Jeff Smith’s Eurotech Racing Honda.
The resulting damage across the start line was so severe that the officials were left no choice but to call the race, with Morgan taking his second of the year and Tom Ingram and Andrew Jordan filling the podium positions.
The incident and red flag promoted many people up the field, with Eurotech’s Martin Depper taking fourth, before the West Surrey Racing trio of Rob Collard, Sam Tordoff and Jack Goff taking fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.
The Welch Proton of Dan Welch and the two Team Hard Toyotas of Jake Hill and Mike Epps rounded out the top ten, with series newcomer Dan Lloyd taking eleventh place for Eurotech Racing. The final points positions went to Speedworks’ Matt Simpson, Handy Toyota’s Rob Austin, the Power Maxed Chevrolet of Hunter Abbott and Alex Martin’s Team Parker Racing Ford Focus.
