Sam Osborne claimed an emotional maiden win in the British Touring Car Championship in the finale at Silverstone while team-mate Ash Sutton trimmed his points deficit to Tom Ingram.
Osborne, who started his 200th BTCC race earlier in the day, was drawn on reversed-grid pole position, and his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST was the only car in the top 10 on soft-compound Goodyear tyres.
The son of Alliance boss Pete Osborne aced the start, and most of the race was a case of fending off the attacks of Josh Cook, who had lined up fourth on the grid in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport.
Osborne build up a lead of almost 1.5 seconds over the first few laps, but Cook began coming back at him, and by the sixth lap of 22 the two were in close proximity.
Cook, despite the disadvantage of running on medium tyres, was close enough to glance down the inside at Maggotts on the 16th lap of 22, with both locking up, and the Toyota driver had another look down the inside of the Brooklands left-hander.
With four laps remaining the leading duo each had enough TOCA Turbo Boost for every lap to the finish, but then the Toyota washed out wide at Luffield with just over two tours to go, and Osborne was able to stretch out a winning margin of 1.609s.
Josh Cook, One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R
Photo by: JEP
Sutton stormed through from 11th on the grid to third within the first six laps, but after that he could make no further progress towards Osborne and Cook, even though he was on soft rubber – albeit he had significantly less TTB available.
Aiden Moffat ran fourth in his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport until a lock-up at Becketts allowed team-mate Jake Hill past on the penultimate lap.
Hill had been embroiled in a titanic struggle with championship leader Ingram in his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback, and soft-shod Alliance Ford racer Dan Rowbottom.
Contact between Hill and Ingram at Becketts sent the Hyundai wide and allowed Rowbottom to slip through, and from then on the sister car to Sutton’s would be the bane of Ingram’s life.
Ingram finally got through at Copse on the 16th lap, and went on to pass Moffat on the final lap to claim fifth.
Completing the top 10 were back-of-the-grid starters Adam Morgan and Tom Chilton (both Excelr8 Hyundais) plus Dan Cammish (Alliance Ford), and front-row man Mikey Doble (Power Maxed Racing Cupra Leon).
BTCC Silverstone – Race 3 results
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