Northern Irishman Colin Turkington took his 3rd BTCC crown yesterday, despite only winning 1 race all season. The West Surrey Racing BMW driver went into the final round at Brands Hatch 34 points ahead of 2nd place Tom Ingram, and wrapped up the championship with a race to spare.
Turkington extended his championship lead by 3 points in Race 1 with a 12th place finish. Both championship contenders were affected by success ballast and found it difficult to make their way through the field. At the front of the pack, Honda Usasa Racing’s Dan Cammish became the 17th different winner of the 2018 season, with team mate Matt Neal coming home 2nd.
The result repeated itself in Race 2, with Cammish once again leading home Neal, but all eyes were on the title challengers who were working their way through the order. Tom Ingram had charged his way up to 4th but couldn’t find a way past Andrew Jordan and a place on the podium. Turkington wasn’t far behind but slipped out of the points when he made contact with Dan Lloyd and had to take a trip through the gravel at turn one. Unfortunately for Ingram, his 4th place finish wasn’t enough to keep the championship alive going into Race 3, much to the relief of a very emotional Turkington.
Race 3 had drama until the very end. Going into the final corner nothing could separate Josh Cook and 2017 champion Ash Sutton. Cook was leading but Sutton got a much better drive out of Clarke Curve and crossed the line 0.032 seconds ahead of the Vauxhall Astra of pole sitter Cook. The new champion Colin Turkington came in a lonely 23rd.
Turkington went on to dedicate his title to his mum, who passed away earlier in the year. From us all at Cargiant, we would like to congratulate Colin on his 3rd crown and are already looking forward to some more four-wheeled action next year.
Image sourced from http://www.btcc.net/2018/09/30/colin-turkington-crowned-triple-btcc-champion/ - 01/10/2018