Butcher takes convincing race one Silverstone victory

Toyota Gazoo Racing UK's Rory Butcher took his second British Touring Car Championship victory of the season after recovering from a slow start to win the opening race at Silverstone.

Butcher started the opening race on pole position, but immediately lost the lead off the start-line to the Hyundai of Tom Ingram.

Following an oil-spill during the previous support race, pole position became compromised due to a damp patch created from the clean-up.

Ingram's stint in the lead, however, proved to be short lived as Butcher powered back ahead of the Excler8 Motorsport driver on the third lap of the race at Brooklands corner.

Butcher soon pulled away from Ingram in second to eventually secure his second race victory aboard the Toyota Corolla by almost four-seconds.

Instead of applying pressure on the Toyota ahead of him, Ingram had his mirrors full of Daniel Lloyd, who enjoyed by far and away his best race of the year in third position.

The Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall driver spent the vast majority of the race glued to the rear of Ingram's Hyundai i30N, but could never quite manufacture a gap past Ingram.

Lloyd had to blend attack with defence, with the Laser Tools Racing Infiniti Q50 of Aiden Moffat also snapping at his heels in fourth position.

Despite the pressure, Ingram held onto second ahead of Lloyd and Moffat, while BTC Racing's Josh Cook kept the top two championship protagonists Colin Turkington and Ash Sutton at bay for fifth position.

Daniel Rowbottom was eighth for Team Dynamics, with Team BMW's Stephen Jelley and two-time champion Jason Plato completing the remainder of the top-ten order in ninth and tenth.

Former champion Andrew Jordan completed the BTCC Hybrid's first ever race laps with the development Toyota Corolla BTCC Hybrid car finishing 25th on the road.