Cammish heads Ingram and Sutton in opener

Dan Cammish led all the way in the first race of the British Touring Car Championship round at Snetterton but is under investigation for a potential start infringement.

The Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST ace drove a perfect tactical race to deploy his surfeit of TOCA Turbo Boost over the chasing Tom Ingram and Ash Sutton to keep himself out of reach.

There were question marks over whether Cammish moved very slightly before his proper getaway at the start, and this came under investigation after the race, only for it to be found that the red lights had already gone out.

Sutton, from sixth on the grid following his alternator problem in qualifying, made short work of passing three cars within two corners to latch his Alliance Ford onto the rear bumper of Ingram’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback.

Ingram pressed Cammish at the start, but the Berkshire-domiciled Yorkshireman used the first of his seven laps of TTB on the second tour to set fastest lap.

The gap remained just over half a second into the second half of the race, before Cammish used two more laps of TTB to move over 2s to the good with a couple of tours remaining.

Ingram had saved his two laps of TTB until the penultimate tour, while Sutton had only one and used it on the final time around.

There was a bold move from Sutton into Agostini, and the Ford made slight contact with the Hyundai before the four-time champion backed out and allowed Ingram back ahead rather than risk a penalty.

Dan Cammish, NAPA Ford Focus ST

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

There was another overlap and body-rub at the Bomb Hole, but Ingram narrowly clung onto second place, albeit 4.307s adrift of the fleeing Cammish.

“A good start, and I got away clean,” said Cammish. “It was always important to manage that first lap, and I managed to fend them off.

“I had a bit of a boost deficit [surfeit], so I knew they had their work cut out but I used it when I needed to. A fairly sensible win. I think we did everything right there in terms of the on-track bit.”

Of the investigation into his race start, Cammish added: “At the moment I don’t know what that’s for. The hard thing for me is I wasn’t aware of it so I didn’t get the chance to redress it [by lapping faster to pull out a bigger gap in case of any time penalty]. I think I could probably have won by more.”

Adam Morgan ran fourth early on with his Excelr8 Hyundai before Dan Rowbottom worked his Alliance Ford into the position on the third lap.

While Rowbottom ran off to fourth place, Morgan conceded another position to the Restart Racing Hyundai of Dan Lloyd, who claimed fifth and reversed his poor run of luck over the opening two race weekends.

More Hyundais finished next, with Tom Chilton (Excelr8) claiming seventh ahead of Chris Smiley (Restart).

Top of those to use the alternate strategy of using the hard tyre versus the soft in this race was Mikey Doble. The Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra predictably slipped back from fourth on the grid, but held on for a fine ninth ahead of the soft-shod West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport of Daryl DeLeon.

Reigning champion Jake Hill’s bid to make progress from his lowly 20th grid position was scuppered on the opening lap when he was the victim at Agostini of two side-by-side Toyotas, one of which was skimming the grass on the inside, inadvertently nerfing him into a spin and damaging a toelink. Hill rejoined after several laps in the pits and lapped slowly to the finish.

BTCC Snetterton – Race 1 results