BTCC Knockhill: Hill surges through to win on soft tyres

Jake Hill continued a great day at Knockhill for BMW in the British Touring Car Championship with victory in the second race of the event.

Hill, who has now taken the championship lead from Tom Ingram, was one of only two drivers in the top 10 allowed to start this race on the soft Goodyear tyre, and used it to good effect to pass the sister West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport of Colin Turkington on the sixth lap before controlling the race.

With the championship regulations mandating the use of the hardest available tyre remaining from a driver’s allocation for race two for each of the top 10 finishers in race one, Hill had elected to take the punishment of using the slower medium rubber in the opener.

He started from fifth on the grid, and immediately got past fourth-starter Aron Taylor-Smith at the getaway.

Hill then passed team-mate Adam Morgan for third at the hairpin on the second lap, and demoted the Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Josh Cook from the runner-up spot with an identical move the next time around.

Shortly after that, Hill got onto his hybrid out of the hairpin and surged past Turkington into the lead on the start-finish straight.

Following Hill up the order was Dan Rowbottom, whose Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST was the other car in the top 10 on the soft tyres.

Jake Hill leads at Knockhill (Photo by: JEP)

The bearded Midlander’s unending sequence of unfortunate events continued when he was given a five-second penalty for a false start, but he rolled up his sleeves, set the fastest lap and passed Turkington for second place at Duffus Dip on the eighth lap.

Now the task for Rowbottom was to extend a 5s advantage over Turkington to eradicate his penalty, something he finally achieved with two of the 24 laps remaining.

Rowbottom crossed the line 2.980 seconds adrift of the victorious Laser Tools-liveried BMW, and was able to keep his second place.

“Job done,” said the happy Hill. “Man, this thing was good. I was impressed with how good it was on the medium tyre in race one, but this time we were flying. The BMW was untouchable.

“Tom [Ingram] has been caught up in his mess all day, and we’re striking while the iron’s hot.”

Behind Turkington, Cook’s fourth place looked pretty vulnerable to the Alliance Ford of the marauding Ash Sutton as the race entered its second half, but the Toyota man shook off the challenge and instead, Sutton had to turn his attention to defending from Morgan.

The red-headed Lancastrian had lost places early doors as he tried to switch on the medium tyres on the rear-wheel-drive BMW, but got stronger as the race wore on to claim sixth.

Dan Cammish claimed seventh in his Alliance Ford, while the Speedworks Toyota of Aiden Moffat just managed to get to the finish line in eighth ahead of Excelr8 Motorsport veteran Tom Chilton, whose Hyundai i30 N had an overlap on the Scot at the chequered flag.

Ingram’s attempt to progress from the back of the grid ran into trouble when his Excelr8 Hyundai got edged into the gravel early on at Clark during a battle with Chris Smiley’s Restart Racing Cupra.

But Ingram recovered and demoted Aron Taylor-Smith’s Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra from 10th place at Duffus Dip on the final lap.

Rob Huff was also in the mix in this battle in his Speedworks Toyota, and was rewarded when Hill picked the number 12 out of the bag to put the 2012 World Touring Car champion’s Toyota on reversed-grid pole for the final race.

BTCC Knockhill Race 2 Result

Main Information Additional Data Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information Additional Data 1  -  2
Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	J. Hill Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			BMW 330e M Sport	24	20'58.075		87.01
2	D. Rowbottom NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	24	+7.980 21'06.055	7.980	86.46
3	C. Turkington Team BMW			BMW 330e M Sport	24	+8.717 21'06.792	0.737	86.41
4	J. Cook LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	+11.800 21'09.875	3.083	86.20
5	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	24	+12.879 21'10.954	1.079	86.12
6	A. Morgan Team BMW			BMW 330e M Sport	24	+13.248 21'11.323	0.369	86.10
7	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	24	+14.698 21'12.773	1.450	86.00
8	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	+24.308 21'22.383	9.610	85.36
9	T. Chilton Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	24	+24.313 21'22.388	0.005	85.36
10	T. Ingram Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	24	+25.841 21'23.916	1.528	85.25
11	A. Taylor-Smith Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing			Vauxhall Astra	24	+26.474 21'24.549	0.633	85.21
12	R. Huff Toyota Gazoo Racing UK			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	+26.863 21'24.938	0.389	85.19
13	C. Smiley Restart Racing			Cupra León	24	+32.088 21'30.163	5.225	84.84
14	A. Watson Toyota Gazoo Racing UK			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	+33.780 21'31.855	1.692	84.73
15	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	24	+37.053 21'35.128	3.273	84.52
16	D. De Duckhams Racing with Bartercard			Cupra León	24	+37.921 21'35.996	0.868	84.46
17	N. Halstead Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	24	+40.674 21'38.749	2.753	84.28
18	M. Doble Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing			Vauxhall Astra	24	+41.560 21'39.635	0.886	84.22
19	S. Sumpton Restart Racing			Cupra León	24	+42.903 21'40.978	1.343	84.14
dnf	R. Pearson Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	22	+2 Laps 20'24.375	2 Laps	81.95	Retirement
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