Tom Chilton held on with soft tyres to take a comfortable win in the final British Touring Car Championship race of the opening round at Donington Park.
The extrovert Surrey veteran started his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback from reversed-grid pole position, but there were concerns that the soft rubber may not last the distance.
Chilton led early on from Dan Rowbottom, also on the soft Goodyears in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST, before the also-soft-shod Excelr8 Hyundai of Tom Ingram dived down the inside at Redgate to take second place.
But even though he was on the same tyre as Chilton, try as he might Ingram could not trim the gap to below a second.
Instead, he soon had to turn his attentions to the looming presence of Ash Sutton, winner of the first two races and on medium tyres in his Alliance Ford.
With two laps remaining Sutton was with Ingram. He made a great move down the inside of Coppice, but Ingram used the TOCA Turbo Boost to retain the position on the run to the chicane.
On the final lap, Sutton made another move at McLeans, but yellow flags were out because of Dexter Patterson’s off late in the race, and he conceded the position once more to Ingram on the run to Coppice.
This battle allowed Chilton to win by 3.485 seconds, with Ingram completing an Excelr8 Hyundai 1-2 and Sutton in third.
“It’s been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster,” said Chilton. “We got to Q3, which is fantastic, but we had a crank sensor fail, which is very frustrating.
“All weekend I’ve just been chipping away, and I got fastest lap in race two, and then I had the pole position and the soft tyre – it was like a win-win.
“It was just cruise around and look after the tyres, and click the gears and get dizzy! I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Dan Cammish completed a strong day after his setback in the first race to take fourth in his Alliance Ford, while team-mate Rowbottom faded on his soft rubber and conceded fifth to the Excelr8 Hyundai of Adam Morgan, who recovered well from his qualifying disaster and first-race non-finish.
Reigning champion Jake Hill ran third early on in his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport on medium tyres, but slipped to fifth on lap two. On the fourth lap, he lost a host of places and was then forced off track at the chicane by an internecine battle between the Speedworks Motorsport Toyotas of James Dorlin and Gordon Shedden
Hill recovered slightly to finish 10th behind WSR BMW team-mate Aiden Moffat, while ahead of them both was a great battle for Independent honours. This, and seventh overall, went to Mikey Doble, whose Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra got past Chris Smiley’s Restart Racing Hyundai on the final lap.
Smiley’s radio had stopped working, he had used all his turbo boost and he was unaware it was the last lap of the race.
BTCC Donington Park - Race 3 results
| Cla | Driver | Car / Engine | Laps | Time/Delay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tom Chilton | Hyundai | 18 | 21'00.867 |
| 2 | Tom Ingram | Hyundai | 18 | 3.485 |
| 3 | Ash Sutton | Ford | 18 | 3.627 |
| 4 | Dan Cammish | Ford | 18 | 7.928 |
| 5 | Adam Morgan | Hyundai | 18 | 11.099 |
| 6 | Dan Rowbottom | Ford | 18 | 14.804 |
| 7 | Mikey Doble | Vauxhall/TOCA | 18 | 15.611 |
| 8 | Chris Smiley | Hyundai | 18 | 15.799 |
| 9 | Aiden Moffat | BMW | 18 | 16.333 |
| 10 | Jake Hill | BMW | 18 | 16.511 |
| 11 | Josh Cook | Honda/TOCA | 18 | 16.718 |
| 12 | Árón T.-Smith | Toyota | 18 | 19.013 |
| 13 | Gordon Shedden | Toyota | 18 | 24.918 |
| 14 | Ronan Pearson | Toyota | 18 | 27.188 |
| 15 | Daryl DeLeon | BMW | 18 | 29.877 |
| 16 | Charles Rainford | BMW | 18 | 30.425 |
| 17 | Stephen Jelley | Honda/TOCA | 18 | 30.858 |
| 18 | Sam Osborne | Ford | 18 | 31.504 |
| 19 | Michael Crees | Hyundai | 18 | 35.315 |
| 20 | Max Hall | Cupra/TOCA | 18 | 36.509 |
| 21 | James Dorlin | Toyota | 18 | 38.755 |
| 22 | Nicolas Hamilton | Cupra/TOCA | 18 | 43.136 |
| - | Dan Lloyd | Hyundai | 17 | |
| - | Dexter Patterson | Cupra/TOCA | 15 |
