Steve Laidlaw doubles up at Silverstone

Steve Laidlaw took less than a lap to go from tenth on the grid to first as he made it two wins from two in the latest rounds of the TCR UK Championship at Silverstone.

The reverse grid saw Mark Smith line up on pole in his Cupra ahead of the Audi of George Jaxon, with Adam Shepherd the best-placed of the expected front-runners in fifth.

However, Shepherd failed to get away from the line when the lights went out and dropped off the back of the field, with Smith retaining the lead from Jaxon.

Behind, race one winner Laidlaw stormed through the pack from tenth and when Smith and Jaxon went side-by-side through Luffield for the first time, Laidlaw suddenly swept through into the lead.

Brad Hutchison followed suit at the start of the second lap, with Smith running wide as the quicker cars behind vaulted up to the front – meaning that by the end of the lap it was Laidlaw from Hutchison and Callum Newsham at the front, with the latter having Luke Sargeant and Sam Laidlaw fixed onto his rear.

Newsham closed onto the rear of Hutchison before launching a move for a second spot on lap four, taking the outside line through Brooklands and holding on to take the position.

As Shepherd started to work his way through the field from the back, the positions out front remained static until lap eleven, when Sam Laidlaw and Sargeant clashed going into Copse.

Laidlaw was attempting to take the outside line to move up into fourth having got a run down the start/finish straight but as Sargeant tried to hold the inside line going into the high-speed right-hander, the pair went off-track out of camera shot – with Sargeant making heavy contact with the wall on the outside and Laidlaw spinning off to the inside.

The field circulated behind the safety car before being released for a one-lap dash to the flag, with Steve Laidlaw able to keep Newsham at bay to secure a second win of the weekend – despite an error heading onto the Wellington Straight that almost allowed the Hyundai to pull alongside.

Hutchison took third in his Cupra ahead of Jaxon in fourth, with Shepherd grabbing fifth on the final lap as he overhauled both Finn Leslie and Will Beech.

Sixth for Leslie was still a mighty effort from the back of the grid after he was forced to retire from race one, with the top ten completed by Rod McGovern, Gregory Saunders and Mark Smith.

Following the race however, Laidlaw was hit with a penalty for contact with Beech on the opening lap, which dropped him down to seventh spot and handed Newsham the race win. That wouldn’t be the end of the tale as Laidlaw then appealed the decision, with stewards overturning the penalty having decided that the contact was a racing incident, reinstating Laidlaw back into P1.