Gordon Shedden took a lights-to-flag victory and his first win of the season in what was a relatively easy race for the Scotsman in race one of the day here at Thruxton in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship which turned into the Honda Racing show.

It took Shedden just 5 laps to move ahead from the chasing pack and draw out a 1.5 second lead ahead of his team-mate Matt Neal. Shedden headed a brilliant display of driving from Honda Racing who took a 1-2 with Matt Neal coming home in 2nd.

Speaking to BTCC Crazy after the race, Shedden said, “I was desperate to get off the mark and get a win with things not going quite to plan in the opening two events. We’ve got to take advantage of our pace while we can.”

“It was all about managing the tyres and getting to the end,” he added. “I had no success ballast so I should have been able to run at the front given the quality of the car and the team.”

“We’re going to have the weight added for the second race but the tyres look fantastic after race one. It’s a marathon, not a sprint but hopefully we’ll be there or there abouts come the end of race two.”

Matt Neal will also take a bonus point from the race after team orders came into play during the latter stages of the race. Coming from a 1.5 second gap, Shedden slowed to allow the sister Civic of Matt Neal to pass and lead the race before giving the place back just one lap later and hand Shedden the deserved win.

Third place went to Andrew Jordan who started the race from the front row of the grid but was unable to keep the Civic of Matt Neal behind with him losing out after just 4 laps.

Chilton brought home the Team Aon Ford Focus home in 4th, holding onto his starting position after being unable to catch the Vauxhall of Andrew Jordan ahead.

It was misery once again for Jason Plato with him suffering the same fate as race one at Donington Two weeks ago. A puncture on lap 15 put him into the barriers at the Club chicane after running as high as 5th and looking comfortable to hold onto that position.

Boardman was forced into making his turbo-powered SEAT Leon as wide as possible with a train of cars behind which included Mat Jackson, Tom Onslow-Cole and James Nash. Boardman held on and came home in 5th place and with it his best finish of his season so far. Onslow-Cole put Jackson under immense pressure during the middle section of the race but it was Jackson who took the 6th place.

James Nash, took a 9th place finish and made it 7 points finishes in a row after carrying the maximum 45kgs ballast into the race.

One driver that capitalised on the mis-fortune of Jason Plato was his team-mate Alex MacDowall. Alex moved up from 11th to 10th and with it taking a point from the opening race of the weekend.

Both NGTC cars of Austin and Wrathall failed to finish the race after problems caused both cars to retire early in the race. Rob Austin’s Audi A4 suffered with a breather pipe problem with Wrathalls Toyota Avensis having overheating problems causing the car to go into ‘safe’ mode.

More to follow…

You can view the full results here.

Photo Credit: Steve Kilvington

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.