Rory Butcher takes first on-the-road win in astonishing Snetterton finale
Rory Butcher secured his maiden on-the-road win with victory in an astonishing final BTCC race of the weekend at Snetterton.
In a race where the mixed tyre strategies came to the fore, the Cobra Sport AmD driver came from twelfth on the grid to secure his second race win, having inherited a victory at Brands Hatch due to a penalty for Tom Chilton at the start of the year.
The race had started with Chris Smiley’s BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R on pole but it was the Vauxhall Astra of Jason Plato that secured the early lead, making a move at Wilson and being followed through by Ash Sutton’s Subaru.
With Plato on the hard tyre and Sutton on the soft, there followed a huge battle for the lead between the former team-mates, which allowed Smiley to keep in touch behind. Smiley managed to split the pair on lap five before losing out to Sutton again a lap later, dropping back to fifth behind a charging Audi of Jake Hill and Butcher’s older FK2 Honda.
As Hill dropped out of contention with a mechanical issue, Plato was left leading from Sutton and Butcher going into the second half of the race, with Sutton all over the rear of the Vauxhall ahead.
Sutton briefly got ahead on lap seven before Plato forced his way back ahead, with Butcher then managing to split the pair to go second. Sutton fought back into second but as the trio headed down the Bentley Straight on lap nine, Sutton elected to try and outside line on the run to Nelson and Butcher went for the inside.
It would prove to be the defining moment of the race as Butcher made the move stick to secure the lead, with Plato sliding into Sutton; tipping the Subaru into a spin that dropped him out of the points.
As Butcher pulled away to victory, it was Josh Cook who suddenly found himself running in second, having also romped through the field on the soft tyre to take second, with Smiley somehow holding onto third on the hard tyre to give BTC a double podium finish.
Rob Collard, who had started down in 14th, was also on the soft tyre and got ahead of Plato in the late race melee to take fourth, with the second of the Astras having to settle for fifth.
Andrew Jordan adopted a watching brief in sixth in his hard-tyre shod BMW, with Sam Tordoff and Tom Ingram following behind, the latter having come from 23rd to eighth on the hard tyre. Ollie Jackson and points leader Colin Turkington rounded out the top ten.
Elsewhere, Sutton would fail to score in 20th but there was reason to celebrate for Sam Osborne as he secured a first points finish for Exceler8 in 15th place.
