Lights-to-flag victory for Colin Turkington in Oulton Park race one

West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington executed a perfect first race at Oulton Park to win from pole position, keeping Team Dynamics’ Dan Cammish at bay throughout to extend his championship lead to 27 points.

Full ballast and the soft compound tyre proved no obstacle for the reigning BTCC champion, who made a good start in his BMW 330i M Sport and held off the fast-starting Cammish in his Honda Civic Type R throughout the extended 18-lap encounter.

It was a nightmare encounter for Cammish’s team-mate Matt Neal, who hit the barriers at Druids on lap six after losing a wheel, leading to a lengthy five-lap safety car intervention which stretched the race to 18 laps.

Turkington’s team mate Andrew Jordan, also on the soft tyre, made a trademark BMW start to take third, a position he held throughout, ahead of the Cobra Sport AmD pair of Rory Butcher and Sam Tordoff – the latter falling back from a front-row start.

Tom Oliphant was the third of the BMWs home in sixth, with the fierce battle for the lower reaches of the top 10 the highlight of the race. Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram took seventh ahead of the charging Ash Sutton in the Team BMR Subaru Levorg, with Power Maxed Racing’s Jason Plato and Motorbase Performance’s Ollie Jackson rounding out the top 10.

The drama in the midfield kicked off on lap three, when Motorbase Performance’s Tom Chilton attempted a pass around the outside of AmD Tuning’s Jake Hill at Lodge, hit the Audi and dropped down to 15th.

Following the safety car period to recover Neal’s stricken Civic, Ingram dived past Sutton at Island on lap 11, with Plato demoting the Subaru further at Knickerbrook, the 2017 champion taking evasive action on the grass and losing the ground he’d made up from 14th on the grid.

Sutton started his fightback on the next lap with a very forceful move on Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan at Cascades, with the heavy contact made causing the Mercedes to retire with a puncture.

Sutton wasn’t finished, making the final significant move of the race on Plato at Island on the 17th lap, putting him up to eighth second in the championship standings.

Back at the front, Turkington eased out the gap to Cammish to just over two seconds at the flag.

Round 15 of the championship is up next at 14.50 BST.