Simpson produces flawless display for maiden BTCC win

Honda driver Matt Simpson has secured his first ever British Touring Car Championship race victory in dominant fashion after producing a flawless performance during the opening race at Oulton Park.

The Eurotech Racing driver started from pole position and led every single lap of the opener after successfully retaining the lead at the start of the race.

Having elected to run the option tyre, Simpson was able to build a near 1.5s lead at the front, an advantage the Honda Civic Type-R driver would enjoy for the majority of the race.

Simpson did, however, cause a brief moment of panic two-thirds into the race when the front left corner of his car appeared to be rubbing against his tyre, causing smoke to appear from that area on his Honda.

While Simpson controlled proceedings at the front, the battle for second proved a much closer affair with the medium tyre running Motorbase Performance of Tom Chilton eventually prevailing for the second step on the rostrum.

Chilton had started behind his Motorbase team mate Sam Tordoff in third position. However, Chilton managed to jump Tordoff at the start of the race, despite the latter of the duo using the softer option tyre.

Tordoff also fell behind the hard charging BMW of Andrew Jordan, who in turn began to ramp up the pressure on Chilton during the dying stages of the race.

Although Simpson looked relatively comfortable in the lead of the race, Chilton eventually managed to claw the gap down to just 0.2s at the chequered flag, but it wasn't enough to deny Simpson a triumphant maiden BTCC victory.

Just finishing off the podium, Tordoff secured a fourth consecutive fourth place finish, while Honda's Matt Neal held off Team BMW's Colin Turkington for fifth.

Turkington started the race from ninth, but the BMW 125i M Sport made a series of clinical moves at the expense of both Eurotech Hondas of Brett Smith and Jack Goff, before picking off James Cole towards the end of the race.

Cole finished in seventh behind the BMW, while Goff, Rob Collard and Rob Austin completed the remainder of the top-ten in eighth, ninth and tenth.

Elsewhere, championship leader Adam Morgan finished outside of the points paying positions in 18th, but has still preserved his points lead, courtesy of Vauxhall's Josh Cook only finishing a position further up in 17th.