Colin Turkington in the #1 Team BMW 330i M Sport won the first of three British Touring Car races run at Snetterton on June 13. His teammates Stephen Jelley and Tom Oliphant finished fourth and tenth, respectively, with Adam Morgan in the #33 Cicely Motorsport 330i M Sport finishing between them in sixth.
Turkington led the second race until Ash Sutton in an Infiniti Q50 got by with about three laps left and held on for the win. Turkington finished second, Oliphant was sixth, Jelley was seventh, and Morgan was eighth.
In race three Jelley, in fifth, was the best BMW finisher despite early-race contact with his teammate Oliphant. Turkington finished seventh, Morgan was eighth, and Oliphant finished sixteenth after another contact incident. The win went to Hyundai i30N racer Tom Ingram; it was the first BTCC win for Hyundai and the Excelr8 Motorsport team.
Turkington said, “It’s been a top weekend and to get my first win of the season is a great feeling, especially in front of fans for the first time since 2019. After a hard Thruxton I really feel like we’re back in the game now and I’m going home happy. The BMW was spot-on in race one and even with maximum weight in race two on a clear track, but buried in the pack in race three, things were tough, so I opted for the damage-limitation tactic and just went for the safe points.”
Going into the series’ next event at Brands Hatch on June 27, BMW leads manufacturers’ points, and Turkington is third in drivers’ points behind Sutton and Ingram.—Brian Morgan
[Photo courtesy Jakob Ebrey/BMW.]