Turkington: The cards didn’t fall my way

Team BMW’s Colin Turkington was ‘frustrated’ to not make further inroads in Ashley Sutton’s British Touring Car Championship lead after suffering a calamitous third race at Silverstone.

With points’ leader Sutton starting from the back after their altercation in race two, Turkington looked set to outscore his Subaru rival in the following encounter as the title race nears its crescendo.

However, a multitude of incidents saw the pendulum swing back in the favour of Sutton, who will now carry a ten-point lead over Turkington into the final three races of the season at Brands Hatch.

Nevertheless, a fourth and third place finish during the opening two races still means the BMW driver leaves the penultimate weekend closer to Sutton than where he started.

“I’m frustrated because I worked so hard through race one and two to maximise what I had. Through no fault of my own I was taken out in race three,” said Turkington.

“But that’s how the championship can swing about. The cards didn’t fall my way in that race but at least I’m still in it.

“The positive is that I go to Brands Hatch two-points closer than I arrived at here so the games on.”

Turkington’s third race began to unravel as early as lap one after contact at Brooklands dropped the two-time champion right down the field and into the firing line as the action ignited at Luffield on lap three.

With the Josh Cook/Jason Plato altercation unfolding ahead of him, Turkington was powerless in avoiding the Ford Focus of Stephen Jelley, who also attempting to escape the wreckage ahead of him.

Inevitable contact with Jelley’s Focus forced Turkington to limp back to the pits with extensive front-end damage, relegating the 35-year old out of points scoring contention.

“I’m frustrated to have not got anything out of race three, through no fault of my own. I was taken out of the race really going into Brooklands on lap one and then the race did fully expire on the exit of Luffield,” Turkington explained.

Speaking of the secondary incident at Luffield, Turkington said: “There’s nothing to talk through really. The car stopped in front of me and I had nowhere to go.”