BTCC: Turkington leads at half way

Colin Turkington will head into his impending wedding safe in the knowledge that he will start married life as the leader of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship following the fifth round of the year at Croft.

The eBay Motors man made the trip to the North East three weeks ago having taken over top spot in the standings with a double success at Oulton Park, and it was a feat he would repeat at the former airfield circuit near Darlington.

Despite maximum ballast on his car, Turkington stormed to pole position and smashed the lap record to put himself in the perfect place on the grid for race one, and made light to revisions to the first gear on his BMW to lead from start-to-finish ahead of the Honda of Gordon Shedden.

Turkington then backed up his success with a second win of the day in race two, although any hopes of becoming only the third driver to win all three races in the same day were ended by clutch failure in race three; a legacy of the extra pressure exerted on the part by the mandatory change in place.

That meant defending champion Andrew Jordan was able to take victory in race three, albeit in slightly controversial fashion after a clash on the opening lap with the Ford of Fabrizio Giovanardi.

Despite his race three retirement, Turkington holds a seven point lead in the standings over Shedden, having taken six wins thus far; two more than Jordan who lies 28 points off top spot thanks largely to a challenging Oulton Park weekend that yielded just 15 points.

Jason Plato sits fourth having won just once so far this season, with Rob Collard and Mat Jackson rounding out the top six.

Matt Neal is already more than 100 points off the lead in seventh, with the top ten completed by Sam Tordoff, Aron Smith and the returning Alain Menu.

A full gallery of images from Croft can be found below, courtesy of Ed Bookless Photography.

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