Charles Rainford sped to a dominant victory in the first race of British Touring Car Championship Sunday at Snetterton, with Tom Ingram a distant runner-up.
With the full complement of 10 laps of TOCA Turbo Boost, a pole position start and the hot weather conditions favouring rear-wheel-drive cars, Rainford and his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport were always the odds-on favourites.
This time, Rainford made a much better start than in the Saturday qualifying race to beat the front-row-sitting Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Josh Cook away. Ingram, who started his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback from third on the grid, had to get past the Toyota as soon as he could, and did so by getting the cutback out of the Agostini left-hander to claim the inside line for the following Hamilton turn.
Rainford was 1.712 seconds to the good over Ingram at the end of the opening lap and, apart from Ingram setting the fastest lap of the race on the third tour, the gap only widened.
With a couple of laps to go, Rainford had eked out over 4s on the chasing Ingram, before easing off on the run to the finish line to claim his second full-points BTCC victory by 3.917s.
“It’s a relief,” said Rainford. “When you’re starting on pole, you can only go backwards. But the race was controlled perfectly. I was happy with my own performance and the performance of the car.
“I was pushing very hard at the start of the race and it looked like Tom was starting to catch me. I was hoping and waiting for his tyres to go, and I think that happened with about four laps to go.”
Tom Ingram, Team VERTU
Photo by: JEP
Rainford’s team-mate Daryl De Leon also made hay while the sun shone from sixth on the grid. His WSR BMW was up to fifth at the start, slipped inside Dan Cammish’s Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium at the esses midway through the race, then got past Cook at Agostini on the ninth of 12 laps.
By this time, the Anglo-Filipino’s deficit to Ingram was 3.9s, and he had also used all but one of his 10 laps of TTB, while Ingram still had his allocation of two in reserve. So that was it for De Leon, who completed a BMW 1-3.
Fourth place was not the end of the world for Cook, since the top three from this race will all have to run the medium-compound tyre in race two, with the West Countryman free to take softs again.
Cook had Cammish hovering up near his rear bumper by the finish, and in turn Dan Rowbottom and his Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon had applied some pressure to the Ford, before settling for sixth.
Seventh position was a fine effort for Tom Chilton, who was the highest-placed finisher on medium tyres in this race, and shrugged off a challenge from Excelr8 Hyundai team-mate Ricky Collard.
Collard had to turn his attentions to the Restart Racing Hyundai of James Dorlin, and the infighting between this pair allowed the Alliance Ford of Sam Osborne to loom into their midst. Collard finally took eighth place, ahead of Dorlin and Osborne.
Eleventh place was as good as it got for Ash Sutton, who had to start his Alliance Ford from the back of the grid following his Saturday disaster, and had just one lap of TTB. Sutton was the second-best finisher on medium tyres, and now looks forward to soft rubber for the rest of the day, with his points advantage to Ingram cut to 26.
BTCC Snetterton – Race 1 results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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