Subaru has joined the list of winners in Britain’s biggest motor racing series after Colin Turkington dominated round 10 of the British Touring Car Championship.
The Irishman’s win at Oulton Park provided a huge boost to Subaru’s maiden BTCC season, just three weeks after the entire four-car team of Levorgs were withdrawn from the previous meeting at Thruxton before the first race.
Turkington started from pole position for the first race of the day and, choosing the soft-compound tyre that all teams are required to use in at least one of the three races at each meeting, assumed a lead that he never lost.
Fellow front-row starter Daniel Lloyd, in only his second BTCC meeting, was beaten away from the grid, his Eurotech Honda Civic Type-R falling behind the West Surrey Racing BMW 1 Series of Sam Tordoff. However Tordoff was unable to make any impression on Turkington’s lead, despite running on the harder compound tyres, Turkington using his tyres well and experiencing no fall-off in pace in the final stages of the race.
Lloyd, meanwhile was soon demoted by the Halfords Yuasa Racing Honda Civic Type-R of ringing champion Gordon Shedden, and then came under pressure from the second Subaru of Jason Plato, which had started sixth.
Rookie Daniel Lloyd was unable to maintain his grid second place in the race. Photo: PSP Images
Plato was quickly past, and closed the gap to Shedden, the Honda and Subaru fighting a pitched battle over several laps. At the end ...