Goff holds off Turkington for race one victory

WIX Racing's Jack Goff has won the opening race of the 2018 British Touring Car Championship after holding off Team BMW's Colin Turkington in the greasy conditions at Brands Hatch.

The Honda Civic Type-R driver started the race from pole position and led every lap of the opening encounter despite coming under increasing pressure from the chasing West Surrey Racing BMW 125i M Sport of Turkington.

While Goff enjoyed a perfect launch from pole-position, the two BMWs behind of Turkington and Andrew Jordan immediately surged up into second and third ahead of Sam Tordoff and Dan Cammish.

Instead of challenging for the top positions, Tordoff's charge came to a premature halt when contact between the Hondas of Matt Simpson and Matt Neal sent the Ford into an early retirement.

That incident meant the safety car made an early appearance as the marshals recovered Neal's stricken Honda Civic Type-R in the gravel.

Back at the front, although Cammish managed to briefly demote Jordan back down to fourth position, it didn't take long for the 2013 champion to reassert his authority over the rookie and subsequently began to give chase on the 11th lap of the race.

By that time Goff and Turkington had managed to establish a three-second gap back to Jordan in third. But as the race for the lead materialised, Jordan closed ever closer to the top two.

Despite Turkington's pressure, Goff held firm and eventually took the win by 0.5s ahead of last year's championship runner-up.

Jordan made it two BMWs on the podium in third, while Speedworks Motorsport's Tom Ingram clawed his way up from ninth to fourth ahead of Motorbase Performance's Tom Chilton in fifth and Adam Morgan in sixth.

Reigning champion Ashley Sutton defied his lowly 18th position qualifying effort and scythed his way back into contention to score valuable championship points in seventh after demoting BTCC rookie Cammish late on the last lap to eighth.

Cammish struggled during the second half of the race and gradually fell towards the rear end of the top-ten but managed to hold off BTC Norlin Racing's Chris Smiley for eighth.

Motorbase Performance's James Cole completed the remainder of the top-ten order in tenth.