Adam Morgan secures unexpected points lead

Adam Morgan admitted that he was surprised to come away from the third meeting of the BTCC season at Thruxton having moved into the championship lead.

The Ciceley Motorsport driver had gone into the weekend sitting second behind Tom Ingram and qualified twelfth on the grid with his ballast-laden Mercedes.

Having lost places at the start of race one, Morgan fought back to take 14th and then raced into seventh in race two having got rid of the additional weight in his car.

That gave him pole for a race three and a lights-to-flag success means he now holds a single point lead over Josh Cook in the standings going into his home round at Oulton Park early next month.

“I didn’t really think about leading the championship going into this weekend, and certainly didn’t expect to be in this position after qualifying and race one,” he said. “I messed up the start in race one so to get back to 14th was a bit of damage limitation and seventh was the best we could have done in race two as we underestimated the circuit temperature which meant we didn’t get the best from the tyres.

“We got the car in the sweet spot in race three and it was a mega – just making sure I was hitting the apexes and managing things from the front. We’ve always gone well here and have had good results in the past so we knew we were capable of scoring well. To come away with 14th, seventh and a win is a good haul of points for us and we got two of the good scores we needed.”