Mark Howard handed suspended ban in Rockingham penalty list

Team BKR driver Mark Howard has been handed a suspended one race ban amongst a raft of penalties dished out by stewards following the eighth meeting of the BTCC season at Rockingham.

Howard was handed his third strike of the year for the incident that put Jack Goff into retirement in race three, for which he was handed and official reprimand and two penalty points.

It means he will now start race one at Silverstone from the back of the grid, with the suspended ban meaning he will need to be aware of picking up additional penalties in the remaining events on the calendar.

Howard wasn’t the only driver to hit three strikes during the weekend, with Jeff Smith picking up a verbal warning for an incident with Warren Scott in race two that resulted in him starting race three from the back, and Colin Turkington picking up an official reprimand and two penalty points on his licence for overtaking Jake Hill under yellow flags in race three – meaning he joins Howard in dropping to the back at Silverstone.

Turkington had earlier been handed a six second time penalty for gaining an unfair advantage in race one, demoting him to fifth place in the results.

Elsewhere, Matt Simpson picked up a verbal warning for a clash with James Cole in race one, where there was also a penalty – an official reprimand and two penalty points – for Dave Newsham over an incident with Aiden Moffat.

Race three winner Aron Smith was deemed to have gained an unfair advantage on the opening lap and was handed a verbal warning whilst Ashley Sutton and Hunter Abbott both picked up official reprimands and two penalty points for incidents with Dave Newsham and Josh Cook respectively.