Mat Jackson pleased to win for injured Davenport

Mat Jackson said he was delighted to secure his first win of the BTCC season at Croft having dedicated the success to team-mate Luke Davenport.

Davenport was one of the three drivers injured following the accident in qualifying and continues to undergo treatment for multiple injuries at the James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough.

Having qualified third on the grid, Jackson secured a podium finish in race one and then took seventh in race two to leave him on the second row of the grid for race three.

Taking the lead from Ollie Jackson early on, Jackson then fended off the late challenge of Ashley Sutton to snare his first win of the year; a win he insisted had been a huge boost to the Ford team.

“What happened in qualifying was hard to take as it was so close to home,” he told TouringCarTimes. “It’s never nice to see a driver injured, but even more so when it’s a team-mate.

“The results were for Luke, and first and foremost we hope he has a speedy recovery and is able to get back into a race car soon.

“For the team, a lot of hard work has gone in and we are reaping the rewards for it. The car has been great this weekend and we knew we would be quick, as we showed by being one of the quickest front-wheel drive cars throughout.”

Jackson came close to missing out on victory after a dramatic move from Sutton on the final lap, and the race winner paid tribute to the Subaru man for trying to go around the outside at the hairpin.

“I was managing the gap to Rob [Austin] but when Ash got through into second, I got on it and it was so close at the end,” he said. “He was coming strong on a rear wheel drive circuit and we had to hold on.

“Ash tried round the outside at the final corner and fair play to him as quite a few drivers would have nailed the rear bumper and forced their way through. He tried something that a decent driver would do and whilst it was never going to come off, fair play to him for trying.”