Gordon Shedden moved back to the top of the overall drivers championship after he took a well deserved win in race two at Rockingham in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

Shedden started the race from sixth on the grid following his race one finishing position but made light work of moving up the field in his un-ballasted turbo powered Honda Civic and was already up to 2nd after the second lap. It took the Scot just two more laps to chase and pass the Chevrolet Cruze of two time and defending champion, Jason Plato, who looked to be suffering with the extra 45kgs he was carrying as a result of winning race one as Shedden used his extra speed to go down the inside at the Deene hairpin and take the win.

“I didn’t expect to win today but the Honda Civic was on a mission. I couldn’t believe it,” said Shedden speaking after the race. “It’s so hard on tyres around here and very difficult to make it to the end. I just had to try and control the pace as much as I could and that’s what I did just to try and stay in front of Frank [Wrathall].

Coming home in second, and with his best finishing position of his BTCC career was Frank Wrathall in his NGTC-spec Toyota Avensis. Wrathall started the race from third on the grid but was soon down in 4th but as the race wore on the Avensis got stronger and he was soon up into second after passing both Paul O’Neill and Jason Plato in the process.

Wrathall was able to catch Shedden and hold a gap of half a second to the leader for much of the race but couldn’t manage to pass the championship leader and had to settle for second place and the best result for an NGTC specification car in the BTCC and with it his 4th podium of the year.

“We’re getting closer to our first win all the time. The car is absolutely fantastic,” said Wrathall. “Obviously I wanted to get past Shedden and take the win but I had a bit of breathing space and time to weigh up the situation and in the passing places I just wasn’t quite quick enough compared to Gordon [Shedden]. It was nice to run him so close to the end.”

Taking his first podium of the day was Matt Neal in the second of the Honda Racing Civic’s ahead of Jason Plato in the Chevrolet Cruze. Behind them it was the rear-wheel drive BMW of Nick Foster which much like race one became quicker as the race wore on which allowed him to move into 5th and take some much earned points.

James Nash, once again, did a brilliant job in challenging for the Independents Driver Championship by finishing in 6th ahead of the GoMobile.co.uk Chevrolet Cruze of Paul O’Neill.

Jeff Smith, Rob Austin and Rob Collard rounded out the top ten with the latter starting from pole position for the final race of the day after the top ten are reversed.

Elsewhere it was a torrid day for Mat Jackson, much like Knockhill, who once again failed to finish. That makes it five races in a row in which the Henley-in-Arden racer has failed to score in.

For the full race classification click here.

For the championship standings click here.

For the full grid for race three click here.

Photo Credit: Jon Hobley

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.