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Knockhill BTCC: Ash Sutton takes win in second Subaru one-two

Ash Sutton claimed his fifth British Touring Car Championship win of 2017 in Sunday's second race at Knockhill, leading home team-mate Jason Plato for BMR's second 1-2 of the day

Subaru Levorg driver Sutton overtook Plato at mid-distance to move to within two points of the championship lead.

Plato, saddled with 75 kilograms of ballast after winning race one, led away from pole at the initial start before the race was quickly red flagged for an incident at the first corner.

The Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Senna Proctor shaped to the outside as he attempted to overtake Speedworks Toyota Avensis driver Tom Ingram, but was sent sideways by a tap from Matt Neal.

Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R driver Neal in turn had been hit from behind by the WSR BMW 125i M Sport of Andrew Jordan.

That put Proctor sideways through Duffus Dip and, out of control, he was collected by Jordan.

That caused a delay in the midfield, with Dave Newsham, Josh Cook and Matt Simpson also affected while Stephen Jelley crashed head on into Proctor's Astra.

The race was delayed by some minutes while a recovery effort began, but Plato made a second strong getaway on the second standing start as Sutton was forced to defend from WSR's Colin Turkington.

After resisting the BMW 125i M Sport into Duffus, Sutton followed Plato as the two Team BMR Subarus again broke away from the chasing WSR cars of Turkington and Rob Collard, with Sutton inching closer to his team-mate.

Championship challenger Sutton got a better exit off the final hairpin at mid-distance and had enough room to sneak up the inside on the start/finish straight to claim the lead, but was forced to work for his win with Plato stalking his every move.

Sutton eventually clinched the win by 0.238 seconds, and is two points shy of third-place finisher Turkington at the top of the drivers' standings.

Collard was fourth for a second race in a row behind team-mate Turkington, with James Cole a lonely fifth in the third Subaru Levorg, ahead of Team Dynamics driver Gordon Shedden.

Free of ballast for race two, a feisty Shedden diced through the order in his Civic Type R in the early stages of the race to advance to sixth, but couldn't make an impression on Cole and eventually finished a couple of seconds shy of the BMR man.

Shedden had been sandwiched by the Subarus of Cole and Josh Price in the initial classification but, after a charge of his own, Price was later excluded from the race for overtaking in a yellow flag zone.

He had started the race in 18th but raced through the order and, despite being involved in contact that eliminated Shedden's team-mate Matt Neal in the latter stages, looked to have clinched his best result in the BTCC before his exclusion.

Dave Newsham therefore inherited seventh in the final order in his BTC Racing Chevrolet Cruze ahead of Tom Ingram.

Motorbase's Rory Butcher moved up to ninth in only his second race in the BTCC aboard his Ford Focus, and will share the front row of the grid for the finale with Ant Whorton-Eales - who was promoted to 10th and will start the reversed-grid third race from pole.

Result - 22 laps

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Ash Sutton Team BMR Subaru 19m25.761s
2 Jason Plato Team BMR Subaru 0.238s
3 Colin Turkington WSR BMW 3.198s
4 Rob Collard WSR BMW 5.063s
5 James Cole Team BMR Subaru 6.831s
6 Gordon Shedden Dynamics/Honda Honda 9.401s
7 Dave Newsham BTC Racing Chevrolet 25.803s
8 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 25.954s
9 Rory Butcher Motorbase Ford 26.361s
10 Ant Whorton-Eales AmD Tuning Audi 28.889s
11 Martin Depper Motorbase Ford 30.959s
12 Tom Chilton Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall 31.841s
13 Matt Simpson Dynamics/Honda Honda 36.074s
14 Chris Smiley BTC Racing Chevrolet 39.823s
15 Aiden Moffat Laser Tools Racing Mercedes 44.428s
16 Mat Jackson Motorbase Ford 44.685s
17 Michael Epps Team Hard Volkswagen 45.215s
18 Brett Smith Eurotech Racing Honda 47.572s
19 Ollie Jackson AmD Tuning Audi 49.314s
20 Will Burns Team Hard Volkswagen 51.406s
21 Stewart Lines Maximum Motorsport Ford 51.944s
- Josh Price Team BMR Subaru Disqualified
- Matt Neal Dynamics/Honda Honda Retirement
- Aron Taylor-Smith Triple Eight/MG MG Retirement
- Jack Goff Eurotech Racing Honda Retirement
- Jake Hill Team Hard Volkswagen Retirement
- Adam Morgan Ciceley Racing Mercedes Retirement
- Stephen Jelley Team Parker Racing Ford Retirement
- Rob Austin Handy Motorsport Toyota Retirement
- Josh Cook Triple Eight/MG MG Retirement
- Andrew Jordan WSR BMW Retirement
- Senna Proctor Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Retirement


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