Turkington takes two wins and the championship lead
James Turkington took the maximum possible fifty points from the two TCR UK races at Brands Hatch and so moved into the lead in the championship with only two more races remaining.
In Race 1, Turkington made a great start from fourth on the grid and went into Turn 1 at Paddock Hill Bend in second place behind pole-sitter Nick Halstead. Championship leader Lewis Kent dropped a place at the start and then struggled with a car that was fully laden with Success Ballast. Turkington snatched the race lead from Halstead on Lap 3, while Kent passed Darelle Wilson for fifth position. With Henry Neal, in a TCT class Honda, passing Halstead for second place overall, the attention switched to the battle between Halstead, Stewart Lines and Kent for third, fourth and fifth positions. Neal then passed Turkington for the race lead on Lap 10, but Turkington won in TCR UK with Halstead second and Lines third after he passed Kent with only a handful of laps remaining.
In Race 2, Kent again made a poor start and ran through the gravel at Druids on Lap 1, dropping to last place. The incident triggered a battle for recovery by Kent that would see him steadily carving his way through the field. His championship rival, however, made a superb start from second on the grid and so Turkington led into Turn 1. Kent’s thrilling recovery drive saw him first pass Wilson, Lines and Halstead to finish third overall behind Turkington and the Neal’s TCT car. However, both Neal and Halstead were given five-second penalties for track limit infringements, so Kent finished second overall ahead of Neal, with Lines third in TCR UK once again.
Turkington commented: “I’m just delighted. I never would have dreamed of being in this situation going into this weekend, having limited experience of a TCR car and never having been here before in this car. I just got a brilliant start and then tried to do qualifying lap after qualifying lap and the guys from Ciceley gave me a brilliant car. I don’t think there’s such a thing as an easy race in TCR but we kept doing our thing and getting to the finish.”
And Kent said: “It was a good way to end the day; we had a really good battle with Neal. I didn’t expect it, to be honest, as I was hoping to get past him, but he’s good at holding people up! We’ve got a few points back and hopefully we can do what we did last time at Donington again and get a few more points back. I’ll have to try and do another Croft; the team always give me a good car and so, if they do that, we’re away.”
Turkington now has a nineteen-point lead over Kent in the Drivers’ standings, with a break of nearly three months until the final pair of races at Donington Park on October 19th/20th.
Race 1
1. James Turkington (Cicely Motorsport, CUPRA), 29 laps
2. Nick Halstead (Orange Motorsport, Honda Civic FK2), 3.268
3. Stewart Lines (Maximum Motorsport, CUPRA), 5.248
Race 2
1. James Turkington (Cicely Motorsport, CUPRA), 29 laps
2. Lewis Kent (Essex & Kent Motorsport, Hyundai i30 N), 2.422
3. Stewart Lines (Maximum Motorsport, CUPRA), 12.809
Championship points
1. Turkington 136; 2. Kent 117; 3. Darelle Wilson 81
