Chilton Gives Global Focus First Win In Race One
Tom Chilton took a commanding victory in the opening race of the day at Knockhill, and in doing so gave the Global Ford Focus its maiden BTCC victory.
Starting from pole position the Team AON driver made a good start to lead fellow front row starter Matt Neal into the first corner.
Behind the lead two, Rob Austin got good drive off the line and passed the Toyota of Frank Wrathall for third. Wrathall also lost out to Gordon Shedden on the opening lap as the Scot made a late lunge down the inside which turned Wrathall into a half spin. The Dynojet driver kept the car pointing in the right direction though and maintained fifth. However Jason Plato also lost out in this incident as he was forced to lift off to avoid clattering into the recovering Wrathall and in doing so was overtaken by the ever opportunistic Mat
Jackson who moved into sixth.
Shedden’s charge continued as he swept past Austin into third and closed in on team mate Neal. Austin then began to slide down the
field as Wrathall pulled off a good overtake at the Real Radio Hairpin to claim fourth. Jackson then took fifth to demote Austin to sixth. Plato was the next man to attempt to pass the Audi driver but instead lost a position thanks to a daring lunge at the Real Radio Hairpin by Tom Onslow-Cole which put him side by side with the Chevrolet driver on the start/finish straight and allowed him to use the turbo power of the Focus to out drag Plato and move up to seventh position.
Onslow-Cole’s charge up the field was soon halted when an attempt to pass Austin on lap eight went horribly wrong and ended both of their races. The pair locked wheels which broke the suspension on Austin’s car and sent him spinning into the barriers while Onslow-Cole’s car speared head on into the barriers severely damaging the front end of his Ford Focus. This brought the Safety Car out onto track.
After eight laps behind the safety car, the race resumed and Chilton once again bolted away from the Honda duo of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden. By this point Shedden was looking the faster of the two Hondas and began to put a massive amount of pressure on his more experienced team mate.
Further back, Plato was still losing places as Rob Collard forced his way through pushing him slightly wide in the process, which also
allowed Nash past the defending champion. Collard then set about catching Jackson and didn’t have to wait long to get past as the championship leader suddenly slowed with a puncture, picked up while defending his position. The Airwaves Racing driver was unable to stop the car when he got to the Real Radio Hairpin and went off into the gravel. Jackson kept his composure to pick a gap
in the traffic and reverse out of the gravel in order to get back to the pit lane. He changed tyres and rejoined but by this point all hope of points had gone as there were just three laps remaining.
At the front, Chilton was making it look easy and by this point he had stretched his lead over Matt Neal to five and a half seconds. He
crossed the line to take his first victory of 2011 in what was one of the most dominant drives of his career so far.
Neal held of team mate Shedden to take second with Frank Wrathall and the charging Rob Collard finishing close behind them in fourth and fifth.
James Nash finished sixth for Triple Eight from twelfth on the grid which was an impressive effort, ahead of Plato who had to hold off Tom Boardman in the closing stages.
Andy Jordan finished ninth ahead of debutant Aron Smith who rounded off the point scorers in tenth.
Neal and Shedden are now co-championship leaders on 160 points, two points ahead of Jackson.
For the full classification see here: http://www.tsl-timing.com/toca/2011/113503trg.pdf
The second race begins at 14:15.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Hobley
Thomas Surgay
