Cammish converts pole to win in Silverstone opener

Honda's Dan Cammish has taken his third British Touring Car Championship race victory of the season after holding off Toyota's Tom Ingram in the opening race at Silverstone.

The Team Dynamics driver started the race from pole position and held the lead for the near entirety of the race ahead of Ingram's Speedworks Motorsport built Corolla.

Unlike Thruxton, Cammish enjoyed a far better launch off the line and was able to protect his lead during the opening stages of the race. However, Ingram looked menacing during the opening laps as the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK driver crawled all over the rear of Cammish's Honda Civic Type-R.

Indeed, Ingram looked to have seized the lead away from Cammish just as race was neutralised under safety car formation, following a collision between Michael Crees and James Gornall at Brooklands. The pair crossed the finish-line side-by-side with Ingram initially being timed as 0.009s ahead of Cammish.

However, the pair swapped switched positions under the safety car back into their original formation, with Cammish being judged as the race leader at the point of the safety car line.

Following the restart on lap 9, Cammish grew in stature and gradually edged away from Ingram as the race progressed. The Honda driver eventually crossed the line over a second ahead of the Toyota.

Having started in third, Motorbase Performance's Rory Butcher managed to remain in that position by the end of the race despite being subject to severe race-long pressure from the top-two championship runners Colin Turkington and Ash Sutton in fourth and fifth.

Butcher's defence of the final step on the podium proved to be inch perfect, while Turkington, as well as applying pressure ahead, was forced to protect his position from the Laser Tools Racing Infiniti of Sutton.

Turkington crucially lost his rear-gunner and Team BMW stablemate Tom Oliphant, who sat directly behind in fifth, halfway through the race. That allowed the sixth placed Sutton to latch onto the rear of the defending four-time champion.

But the championship leader was unable to find a way past Turkington's BMW 330i M Sport, meaning the latter of the duo has narrowly closed in on Sutton's points lead.

Behind the top-five, Adam Morgan scored strong points in sixth, while Jake Hill rose up the order to finish in seventh ahead of Honda's Matt Neal.

Stephen Jelley and Josh Cook completed the remainder of top-ten positions in ninth and tenth.