Turkington doubles up with race two victory

Defending British Touring Car champion Colin Turkington makes it two victories from two at Donington Park after winning the second race ahead of Honda's Matt Neal.

In a near mirror image of race one, Turkington superbly controlled proceedings from pole position and led every lap of race two despite having to contend with a further two safety car periods.

Although Turkington's BMW 330i M Sport was carrying the full 54 kilos of success ballast from the opening race, the Team BMW driver faced little resistance from the chasing pack and was able to keep re-establishing the gap to around two-seconds following each restart.

For most of the race, Turkington's nearest challenger came in the form of Subaru's Ashley Sutton after the 2017 champion quickly dispatched Tom Oliphant for second position in the early stages of the race.

However, instead of homing in on the rear of Turkington's BMW, Sutton began to fall back into the clutches of Oliphant, Matt Neal and Tom Chilton.

Ultimately, it was Neal who came out on top in the battle for second after the former three-time champion drove around the outside of Sutton's Subaru's heading into turn one on the tenth lap of the race.

Sutton held off the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus RS of Chilton for the final step on the rostrum in third, while Team BMW's Oliphant limped home to a 17th place finish after getting turned around by BTC Racing's Josh Cook late in the race.

Fourth position for Chilton means the 13-time BTCC race winner leads the early championship reckoning by two points ahead of BMR’s Sutton.

Rory Butcher completed the top-five order in fifth ahead of Power Maxed Racing's Jason Plato in sixth. Plato managed to recover back up to sharp end after earlier contact with AmD Tuning's Sam Tordoff saw the former two-time champion drop outside of the top-ten.

Despite running the hard tyre, Rob Collard followed his Vauxhall Astra team mate home in seventh place, while Josh Cook rose from 24th on the grid to finish in a strong eighth.

Jake Hill was another driver to produce a mighty charge back up the order to finish the second race in ninth position following his earlier retirement in the opening race.

Team Toyota GB's Tom Ingram finished in tenth on the hard tyre and will start the reverse grid from pole position after his number was called in the grid draw.