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Croft BTCC: Andrew Jordan gives WSR BMW another win

Andrew Jordan netted his fourth win of the British Touring Car Championship season in the opening race at Croft, leading from lights to flag in a dominant display

The WSR driver remained unchallenged from pole in his BMW 330i M Sport and at the sole safety car restart to claim victory over BTC Racing's Chris Smiley by 1.835 seconds.

A rain shower in the lead up to the race looked as though it would favour double Thruxton victor Jordan's closest front-wheel-drive rivals in Smiley and third-starting Tom Chilton.

But it remained dry enough for slick tyres and Jordan's composed launch left Smiley to defend from Chilton and a fast-starting Colin Turkington.

The top four retained their grid order into Clervaux and stayed in formation for much of the race.

As the Honda Civic Type R of Smiley and Chilton's Ford Focus RS took time to warm their tyres Jordan was able to swiftly pull out a 1.2s lead on the first lap, which then rose to 1.9s.

But that was neutralised by a safety car, called when Rob Collard and Nic Hamilton span on the on-track mud at Sunny.

It led to a lengthy delay as Collard's Vauxhall Astra went backwards into the tyre wall and its broken left-rear toe-link meant it had to be towed out of the mud before being lifted onto a recovery vehicle.

As a result, the race was extended by a maximum three laps, and Jordan's clean restart meant he faced no threat to the flag and went to claim his 24th BTCC victory. He climbed from ninth to sixth in the standings as a result.

Smiley maintained second to score his first ever series podium, beating Motorbase driver Chilton.

Reigning champion Turkington survived an earlier dice through the Complex with WSR stablemate Tom Oliphant for fourth place, with practice pacesetter Dan Cammish climbing to sixth.

Double Croft winner last year, Ashley Sutton dropped to seventh ahead of former BMR Subaru Levorg GT team-mate Jason Plato's Vauxhall.

Josh Cook recovered from a large slide to seal ninth ahead of Team Dynamics driver Matt Neal.

Tom Ingram finished as best of the field to run on the hard-compound tyres, progressing in his Speedworks-run Toyota Corolla from 15th up to 11th ahead of Jake Hill on the same rubber.

Stephen Jelley's track limits indiscretion during qualifying dropped him to 18th but he recovered to 13th in his BMW 125i M Sport, despite colliding with the Mercedes A-Class of Aidan Moffat at the final-corner hairpin.

Joint points leader coming into the race, Rory Butcher's sizeable qualifying shunt relegated him to 29th on the grid but he fought through on the hard tyres up to 18th.

Race one result

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Andrew Jordan WSR BMW 29m13.613s
2 Chris Smiley BTC Racing Honda 1.835s
3 Tom Chilton Motorbase Performance Ford 2.685s
4 Colin Turkington WSR BMW 3.259s
5 Tom Oliphant WSR BMW 3.472s
6 Dan Cammish Team Dynamics Honda 4.405s
7 Ash Sutton BMR Racing Subaru 4.736s
8 Jason Plato Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall 6.150s
9 Josh Cook BTC Racing Honda 10.751s
10 Matt Neal Team Dynamics Honda 12.561s
11 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 15.460s
12 Jake Hill Trade Price Cars Racing Audi 16.361s
13 Aiden Moffat Laser Tools Racing Mercedes 17.593s
14 Stephen Jelley Team Parker Racing BMW 17.604s
15 Senna Proctor BMR Racing Subaru 18.161s
16 Adam Morgan Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 18.814s
17 Jack Goff Team Hard Volkswagen 19.449s
18 Rory Butcher AmD Tuning Honda 19.841s
19 Carl Boardley Team Hard Volkswagen 20.581s
20 Daniel Rowbottom Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 22.955s
21 Mark Blundell Trade Price Cars Racing Audi 29.810s
22 Rob Smith Excelr8 Motorsport MG 31.263s
23 Sam Tordoff AmD Tuning Honda 1m27.812s
24 Nicolas Hamilton Motorbase Performance Ford 2 Laps
- Michael Crees Team Hard Volkswagen Retirement
- Matt Simpson Simpson Racing Honda Retirement
- Sam Osborne Excelr8 Motorsport MG Retirement
- Ollie Jackson Motorbase Performance Ford Retirement
- Bobby Thompson Team Hard Volkswagen Retirement
- Rob Collard Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Retirement


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