Turkington back in the lead after hard fought weekend

Team BMW's Colin Turkington is pleased to be back in the lead of the 2018 British Touring Car Championship title race after out-scoring his main rival Tom Ingram at Rockingham.

Heading into the seventh carrying 66 kilos of success ballast, Turkington admitted BMW had struggled with overall car speed for most of the Rockingham weekend, but the two-time champion has still managed to come away with a four-point over Ingram in second.

Having qualified in twelfth ahead of race one, the BMW 125i M Sport driver ended the day on the podium with a hard fought drive to second place in race three, after scoring seventh and fifth in the previous two races.

"We’ve been fighting all weekend," Turkington told Crash.net. "The car has been getting faster as we’ve gone through the weekend. When you don’t have enough speed, you’ve just got to keep scoring points.

"We did that. We moved forward in each race and that’s culminated in a podium with P2 in race three, which I didn’t think we had. We were on the hard tyre and the car got faster. I’m very pleased with the points haul and the points that I have."

Despite running the less favoured hard tyre in race three, Turkington was able to attack and defend against Matt Simpson and Sam Tordoff during the reverse grid race.

Having successfully fended off Tordoff following an enthralling multi-lap duel with the Ford Focus, Turkington later managed to force Simpson into a final corner error, which allowed the Team BMW driver to snatch second away from the Honda, right at the death.

"Sam [Tordoff] in the early part of the race was very fast behind me. Through sector 2 I was strong. Once his tyres started to drop, then I was OK," Turkington continued.

"Then I started to get on the back of Matt Simpson and put a bit of pressure on. His tyres were dropping as well. I had to be patient and pick moments, but keep on the attack.

"Every point is so important in the championship. Anything that comes your way, you’ve got to grab it. I’m pleased with where we’re at. It’s taken until race three to really be fast."