Rowbottom claims thrilling win in second race

Dan Rowbottom held on in a thrilling second race of the weekend to break his season duck in the British Touring Car Championship.

Rowbottom pipped Adam Morgan to the finish line by a mere 0.355 seconds, but it was his tenacious defence and regaining of the lead from Dan Lloyd in the middle stages of the race that were key to the bearded Midlander’s victory.

The Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST of Rowbottom was the highest-placed car on the grid – in fourth place – to be running the soft Goodyear tyres, with the top three from race one all mandated to use the hard rubber.

Ash Sutton in his Alliance Ford got a blinding start from third on the grid, only to be boxed in behind polesitting team-mate Dan Cammish.

But Sutton was able to spear inside Cammish at the Wilson hairpin to take the lead, before Tom Ingram inserted his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N down the inside of the Yorkshireman at Agostini to take second.

Rowbottom followed Ingram through, and was right on Ingram’s tail at the start of the second lap.

The two were extremely close through Riches when Ingram got into a massive slide, before slewing back across to the inside of the circuit and clanging sideways into the barrier.

The Hyundai recovered to the pits, but the damage meant that Ingram was out of the race.

Tom Ingram, Team Vertu Hyundai i30

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Further around the lap, Rowbottom drove down the inside of team-mate Sutton at the esses to take the lead, but was never able to pull out much of a gap.

That was because Lloyd had slipped his Restart Racing Hyundai ahead of Sutton at Riches, and it wasn’t long before Rowbottom was having to defend.

For three laps they ran in close formation, before Lloyd sliced down the inside to grab the lead at Riches. But Rowbottom refused to give up, and the Ford in turn went back in front at the Hamilton infield left-hander.

Their battle had drawn Morgan into their midst, and the Excelr8 Hyundai driver had done a better job of conserving his TOCA Turbo Boost, albeit starting with one more lap than Lloyd and two over Rowbottom.

Morgan got past Lloyd at Riches with just under three laps remaining, and his pursuit caused Rowbottom to use his final lap of TTB on the penultimate tour.

Now Morgan had a lap of boost in hand, but a mistake for the Hyundai driver at Hamilton allowed Rowbottom the breathing space he needed to hang on.

“It was hard work,” said Rowbottom. “We were a bit lacking on boost and Dan put up a real tough fight. So I had to use more [boost] and then Adam was coming. But the car’s been fantastic all weekend.”

Lloyd faded slightly in the closing stages and it was the Excelr8 Hyundai of Tom Chilton that came through for third, with Lloyd just hanging on to defeat Restart team-mate Chris Smiley for fourth.

Mikey Doble was sixth, despite his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra being turned across the front of Sam Osborne’s Alliance Ford at the esses as they homed in on Sutton.

Doble took to the escape road, bounced across the grass and rejoined at the Bomb Hole, passed Sutton and took the position that gained him reversed-grid pole position for the final race of the day. He is the only driver in the top six on the grid to be using soft tyres in that finale.

Josh Cook took advantage of the Doble/Osborne melee to take seventh in his One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R from Osborne, while Charles Rainford moved up to ninth in his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport ahead of Sutton.

Jake Hill progressed his WSR BMW up to 11th.

BTCC Snetterton – Race 2 results