Hill recovers to secure Donington reverse grid race victory

ROKiT MB Motorsport's Jake Hill ended a roller-coaster opening British Touring Car Championship race day on a high after producing a dominant performance to win the reverse grid race at Donington Park.

Hill started the day on pole position but a bruising opening race saw him lose his third place finish after his WSR prepared BMW 330e M Sport failed the post-race ride-height check.

That dropped him to the rear of the field for race two, but recovered back up the order to finish in ninth, which translated into pole position for the reverse grid race.

And from pole position, Hill comfortably controlled proceedings to the tune of a constant two-second gap back towards defending champion Ash Sutton in second.

Hill made a clean getaway from pole position and dictated the pace from the front, which saw him gain the extra bonus point for setting the fastest lap.

Despite briefly losing his grip on second position to Dan Lloyd early in the race, Sutton enjoyed a similarly routine drive to the podium, while the battle for third raged on a handful of seconds behind the top-two.

EXCELR8 Motorsport's Dan Lloyd valiantly held off a five-strong armada, led by the BTC Honda of Josh Cook, for much of the race, but Cook's persistence eventually paid off on lap 15.

Cook finally broke Lloyd's resolve on the exit of Redgate and made the move stick into the Old Hairpin.

Lloyd did manage to hold off his EXCELR8 Hyundai Tom Ingram for fourth, while Adam Morgan settled for sixth ahead of Toyota's Rory Bucther in seventh.

Team BMW's Colin Turkington made decent ground during the final race from 13th to score vital points with an eighth place finish. 

Gordon Shedden and Bobby Thompson completed the remainder of the top-ten in ninth and tenth.