Race report

BTCC Thruxton II

Thruxton BTCC: Tordoff wins Race 1, Plato penalised

Sam Tordoff won the opening BTCC race at Thruxton from pole position, as second-place starter Jason Plato was relegated to 17th after a penalty.

Matt Kew

Edited: Aug 18, 2019, 3:56 PM

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Pole sitter Sam Tordoff, AMD Tuning Honda Civic

The AmD Tuning driver’s 0.4-second victory over Dan Cammish earned the team its third series win, all scored this season, and Tordoff’s eighth – having last triumphed in the opening Silverstone race last season.

Tordoff had led the first race at Thruxton earlier in the year before an alternator failure sapped his car’s power and dropped him behind Andrew Jordan.

This time around, Plato was a match for Tordoff off the line and attempted to pass for the lead around the outside on the run through to Allard.

But as the pack headed on to the Complex, Tordoff’s inside line meant he could edge ahead in the braking zone to consolidate first place.

Plato remained in Tordoff’s tow for the remainder of the lap but was then was forced to serve a drivethrough penalty for a startline infringement.

The double BTCC champion had stopped his Vauxhall with its front bumper ahead of the line denoting his grid slot – falling foul of a new regulation brought in for the 2019 season.

With Plato dropped to the back, it allowed the FK8 Honda of Dan Cammish to give chase after Tordoff – driving the older FK2 ex-Team Dynamics Honda.

Tordoff crossed the line with a 0.843s advantage and although the race pace dropped by 1.3s per lap, he held on to the victory as the 30kg of success ballast aboard Cammish’s car hampered his pace on the abrasive asphalt.

Thanks to a change in engineering staff, the Ciceley Motorsport team’s new-found pace carried over from Saturday, with Adam Morgan crossing the line third.

The Mercedes driver pressured Cammish for much of the final third but was unable to take advantage.

The BTC Racing FK8 Honda of Josh Cook was fourth, while a ballast-free Tom Oliphant bagged rear-wheel-drive honours for the BMW 330i M Sport in fifth place.

Plato’s teammate Rob Collard was sixth ahead of second AmD driver and Rory Butcher.

Matt Neal took advantage of Ashley Sutton’s pass on Jordan through Church to climb to eighth.

The Honda driver had started in 17th, but when Sutton compromised Jordan’s line he snuck through and then used his superior straight line speed to demote the Subaru also.

Behind Sutton, the top 10 was completed by Chris Smiley with Tom Ingram in 11th.

Title contender Jordan and points leader Colin Turkington struggled with their success ballast to 12th and 13th.

Plato eventually recovered to 17th.

Race results:

POS DRIVER TEAM CAR GAP 1 Sam Tordoff AmD Tuning Honda 20m55.872s 2 Dan Cammish Team Dynamics Honda 0.403s 3 Adam Morgan Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 0.714s 4 Josh Cook BTC Racing Honda 1.208s 5 Tom Oliphant WSR BMW 3.189s 6 Rob Collard Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall 4.660s 7 Rory Butcher AmD Tuning Honda 8.923s 8 Matt Neal Team Dynamics Honda 10.562s 9 Ash Sutton BMR Racing Subaru 10.863s 10 Chris Smiley BTC Racing Honda 11.446s 11 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 12.883s 12 Andrew Jordan WSR BMW 13.422s 13 Colin Turkington WSR BMW 15.118s 14 Bobby Thompson Team Hard Volkswagen 17.272s 15 Ollie Jackson Motorbase Performance Ford 18.034s 16 Jake Hill Trade Price Cars Racing Audi 19.126s 17 Jason Plato Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall 22.321s 18 Aiden Moffat Laser Tools Racing Infiniti 25.134s 19 Stephen Jelley Team Parker Racing BMW 25.337s 20 Daniel Rowbottom Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 25.837s 21 Matt Simpson Simpson Racing Honda 27.670s 22 Tom Chilton Motorbase Performance Ford 29.823s 23 Michael Crees Team Hard Volkswagen 38.288s 24 Jack Goff Team Hard Volkswagen 38.454s 25 Rob Smith Excelr8 Motorsport MG 39.463s 26 Nicolas Hamilton Motorbase Performance Ford 41.643s 27 Mark Blundell Trade Price Cars Racing Audi 46.446s 28 Sam Osborne Excelr8 Motorsport MG 48.601s 29 Senna Proctor BMR Racing Subaru 1m04.720s 30 Carl Boardley Team Hard Volkswagen 1 Lap

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