Sutton fends off Turkington for race one win

Laser Tools Racing's Ash Sutton maintains the pressure in the British Touring Car Championship title race after beating points leader Colin Turkington to the race one win at Knockhill.

Sutton successfully converted pole position into his third BTCC win of the season - currently more than any other driver so far in 2020 - after driving an inch perfect race ahead of his main title rival Turkington in second.

With Turkington immediately moving ahead of MB Motorsport's Jake Hill at the start of the race, the leading RWD runners gradually broke away from the chasing the pack, trading similar sector times in the process.

As usual, Turkington's BMW 330i M Sport machine was so slow to build tyre temperature during the early stages of the race. However, a lengthy safety car phase from lap five to ten wiped out Sutton's near two-second lead ahead of the Team BMW runner.

Josh Cook was the driver in question to bring out the safety car after the BTC Racing driver suffered a heavy shunt into the tyre barriers after losing control of his Honda on the run up to the infamous chicane section.

From the restart onwards, Turkington latched onto the rear of Sutton's Infiniti Q50, but could never quite get close enough to really trouble the Laser Tools Racing driver.

Just 0.350s covered the pair as they crossed the line, with Hill completing the podium order in third, some three-seconds behind Sutton and Turkington.

Hill endured race long pressure from Tom Ingram in fourth, but held firm ahead of the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK driver.

Home hero Rory Butcher kept a watching brief of the pair in fifth position after the Motorbase Performance driver scythed past Honda's Dan Cammish during the early stages of the race.

Cammish lost out during the opening laps after the 2019 BTCC runner-up attempted to pass both Hill and Turkington around the outside of the final hairpin.

Turkington's defence of second saw Cammish moved aside towards the gravel trap, which allowed both Ingram and Butcher to move ahead of the Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type-R.

Despite his crash in qualifying, Matt Neal showed strong pace to make some progress back up the order in seventh, while Tom Oliphant, Aiden Moffat and Stephen Jelley rounded out the remainder of the top-ten order.