Tom Boardman won a race of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship for the first time in his career in the final race of the day at Knockhill.

The Special Tuning Racing driver started from second on the grid thanks to the reverse grid system and but for a little too much wheelspin off the line probably would have led into the first corner, due to a rather sluggish start from pole sitter Jason Plato. The defending champion managed to do just enough to keep Boardman behind on the opening lap though. However the speed advantage of the turbo powered Seat was soon evident as Boardman attacked Plato and it was a question of when rather than if he would get past. And sure enough on lap four Boardman got a slight overlap out of the first corner, Plato went defensive but the momentum Boardman had saw him tag the back of the Chevrolet and that was enough to spin Plato off into the tyres.

This brought the safety car out. Behind Boardman the order was much as it had been on the grid with Collard second, ahead of Chilton, Wrathall, Neal and Shedden.

After Plato’s car was moved from its position the safety car peeled in but Boardman made a misjudgement in backing the pack up and chose to slam his brakes on at the hairpin which inevitably caused chaos. Some drivers had to take to the grass to avoid slamming into the back of cars ahead of them , while a few cars made small amounts of contact. Aron Smith was the unlucky one sustaining heavy damage to his car after colliding with a couple of cars including his Triple Eight team mate James Nash. Smith’s stricken car meant that the restart was aborted and the safety car was immediately sent back onto the track.

At the second restart Boardman made a slightly better job of choosing where to back the pack up and made a good break away from Collard.

Further down the field Mat Jackson was on a charge having started from the back of the field he found himself in tenth shortly after the
restart before he overtook three cars in the space of two corners to move into seventh. He then closed in on the pack in front of him which contained Chilton, Wrathall and the two Hondas. A mistake from Chilton saw him get shuffled back from third to sixth and this put Jackson right on his tail.

With five laps to go Collard caught Boardman and began to put a massive amount of pressure on the race leader but he couldn’t find a way through. The Seat driver kept a cool head to hold on and win for the very first time in the BTCC.

Behind Collard in third was Frank Wrathall who picked up his second podium finish of the day. Matt Neal kept team mate Shedden at bay to finish fourth.

Tom Chilton was sixth but was fortunate to survive a punt from behind by Jackson who misjudged his braking point at the hairpin and
slammed into the back of the Team AON Focus. Jackson wasn’t so lucky as the impact damaged his car and ended his race, rounding off a miserable day for the Airwaves Racing driver who failed to finish any of today’s three races.

Andrew Jordan finished seventh ahead of Tom Onslow-Cole, Nick Foster and Alex MacDowall.

However, it remains to be seen whether or not Boardman will be allowed to keep his victory after spinning Plato out of the race and causing the pile up before the first restart. The stewards are expected to make a decision later this evening.

In terms of the championship, Shedden now leads the standings by a single point to team mate Matt Neal, while difficult days for
Jackson and Plato have seen them lose significant ground on the lead two.

For the full classification see here: http://www.tsl-timing.com/toca/2011/113503trg.pdf

The next race meeting is at Rockingham on the weekend of the 17^th/18^th September.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Hobley

Tom Surgay is the Porsche Carrera Cup GB correspondant for 2011. Tom's currently studying English Language with Journalism at Huddersfield University. You can contact him at tom@btcccrazy.co.uk or on twitter @tsurgay.