Sam Tordoff leads Motorbase 1-2 in Silverstone Race 1

Sam Tordoff has claimed his first win of the 2018 British Touring Car championship season, leading team-mate Tom Chilton to a Motorbase Performance Ford 1-2, with West Surrey Racing BMW driver Ricky Collard securing his first career podium.

The race was also a boost for Collard’s team-mate Colin Turkington, who worked his way forwards from 18th on the grid to eighth, and has extended his championship lead to 50 points over chief rival Tom Ingram.

Tordoff’s Ford Focus RS launched off the line well with Collard close behind in the BMW 125i close behind, but Collard ran wide at Copse which saw him drop to fifth behind Chilton, his West Surrey Racing team-mate Andrew Jordan, and the Eurotech Honda of Jack Goff.

There was trouble on lap two as the HMS Racing Alfa Romeo of Rob Austin span at Maggotts and collected the Team Dynamics Honda of Matt Neal who was running in tenth, with the triple champion becoming the first retirement of the race.

Two laps later and an incident involving BTC Norlin Honda driver Chris Smiley and the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Josh Cook at Brooklands saw the safety car deployed, with Cook’s car buried in the gravel.

The race resumed on lap eight, with the two Motorbase Fords pulling away from Jordan’s BMW, who then picked up an electrical issue on lap 11 and pulled into the pits, promoting Collard back to third.

Turkington, who’d made up good ground at the start, slowly picked his way forwards, while a battle-scarred BMR Subaru of Ash Sutton was making faster progress, with the reigning champion muscling his way forwards to 11th.

Tom Ingram in the Speedworks Toyota managed to pick off TCR UK championship leader Dan Lloyd’s BTC Norlin Honda for the final points paying position on the last lap, and managed to slightly limit the damage to Turkington in the standings.

Turkington now leads the championship by 50 points over Ingram, 54 over Sutton and 55 over Chilton heading to Race 2 today at 14:40 BST (15:40 CEST).