Mat Jackson left Thruxton as the independents championship leader in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship after he led his Airwaves Ford Focus to three points finishes over the weekend.

Jackson remains one of only two drivers to score points in all nice races of the season as he staked his claim as one of the championship contenders this season.

Qualifying didn’t go well for the Henley-in-Arden racer who could only manage the 8th fastest time of the session. However a dogged performance in the turbo-powered Ford Focus meant that Jackson would move up two places to come home in 6th.

Jackson took the early initiative in race two and held his 5th place position across the line despite coming under increasing pressure from James Nash in the unweighted Vauxhall Vectra.

The reverse grid say Jackson start the third race of the day in 5th place and with a brilliant start he’d already moved up to 2nd behind race leader Jason Plato. Jackson held his nerve on the restart to take his fourth podium finish this season and keeping up the record of scoring a podium in each round this season.

“An awesome result for the team, it’s great come away with a second place result and to pull some points in from the weekend,” said Jackson reflecting on the weekend. “We knew that Thruxton was never going to suit our car and we had to salvage whatever result we could from this weekend. It’s still early days, but every point counts and it feels fantastic to be second place in Championship standings and leading the Independents going into Oulton Park.”

Jackson will take 37kgs of ballast into the next round of the season following his second place championship position where he lies just 12 points behind championship leader, Matt Neal.

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.