Turkington back in title hunt with dominant Knockhill victory

Team BMW's Colin Turkington gets his British Touring Car Championship title assault back on track after securing his first win since Snetterton in race one at Knockhill.

Turkington's second win of 2021 also delivered a landmark 100th BTCC race victory for the ultra-successful West Surrey Racing squad.

Having started from pole position, the four-time champion was in imperious form and controlled the race with ease, despite an early safety car wiping out a near three-second lead he assembled over Senna Proctor and Chris Smiley.

Once the stricken Vauxhall Astra of Dan Lloyd was recovered from gravel trap at the Chicane, Turkington made quick work of rebuilding his handsome lead ahead of BTC Racing's Proctor by setting the fastest lap of the race at the first time of asking following the restart.

Such was Turkington's consistency, the BMW 330i M Sport driver registered a series of laps within 0.1s of each other, which allowed the former champion to cross line almost five-seconds ahead of Proctor by the end of the race.

As virtue of his second win of the season, Turkington jumps up to fifth from ninth in the drivers' standings, closing the points deficit to 27 behind championship leader Ash Sutton.

Proctor's run to second wasn't as comfortable as Turkington's crusade to victory. The BTC Racing Honda Civic Type-R came under severe pressure from Smiley during the early laps, but Proctor managed to weather the storm and pull away from the Hyundai to secure second.

In contrast, Smiley dropped to fifth after falling behind Proctor's BTC Racing team mate Josh Cook and Laser Tools Racing's Ash Sutton in the dying laps of the race.

Cook spent a number of laps glued to the rear of Smiley's Hyundai i30N before making the decisive move on lap 20, with Sutton also seizing the opportunity to move up a position into fourth.

MB Motorsport's Jake Hill finished in sixth ahead of home heroes Aiden Moffat, Gordon Shedden and Rory Butcher all lying astern in seventh, eighth and ninth.

Excelr8 Motorsport's Tom Ingram completed the top-ten order in tenth.