Two from two for Adam Shepherd at Croft
Adam Shepherd doubled up with victory in the second race of the TCR UK weekend at Croft, albeit only after a controversial incident involving one of his main title rivals.
Steve Laidlaw started the race from pole and was able to lead the field away at the start, with Will Beech making a storming start to romp up the order from the third row of the grid into second as he dived past Harry Bloor’s Hyundai into turn one.
Behind, both Callum Newsham and Shepherd were also on a move, with Newsham up to fourth by turn one and then into the top three by Tower when he got ahead of Bloor. Shepherd would follow him through before the end of the lap to take seventh – with Newsham grabbing second from Beech at the hairpin.
Shepherd cleared Beech for third at Sunny on the second lap to put the three big title contenders together in the top three places, with Shepherd taking second from Newsham at the hairpin at the end of the third lap.
It took little time for Shepherd to close on Laidlaw at the front and having tried a move at the hairpin on lap five, he looked set to take advantage when the leader clipped the tyre stack on the exit of the first chicane.
Laidlaw was able to retain the lead going down to Tower but on the exit, Shepherd drew alongside on the outside in order to get the inside line going into the Esses. Contact between the pair saw Laidlaw spin into the barriers before rejoining at the back, with Shepherd able to continue out front.
From that point on, Shepherd was able to race clear of Newsham to score a comfortable win by just under six seconds, with Finn Leslie racing his way through to third to round out the podium after coming out on top of a mid-race battle with Beech.
Beech himself would then come under attack from Sam Laidlaw, who stalled at the start and then left to play catch-up. Setting lap record pace on his climb through the field, Laidlaw finished little more than a second off the podium positions, with Beech and Bloor rounding out the top six.
George Jaxon was a lonley seventh ahead of the Cupra of Mark Smith, with Jordan Kerridge and the delayed Steve Laidlaw in tenth.
Brad Hutchison was the only retirement after coming into the pits early on.
The third and final TCR UK race of the weekend starts at 16:30 local time/17:30 CEST.
