WSR and BMW claimed three impressive British Touring Car Championship podium finishes as they maintained the lead of the Manufacturers’ title race on a frenetic day of action at Donington Park.
Second and third-place finishes for Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill and another rostrum result for Team BMW’s Adam Morgan mean WSR cars have scored 21 podiums in 2023 – a total the team have only surpassed three times in the BTCC.
“The priority this weekend was to stay ahead in the Manufacturers’ Championship,” commented Dick Bennetts, Team Principal. “We’ve done that so that’s the number-one aim achieved. We knew we had to make an improvement after qualifying and we definitely did that today, as three podiums proves. Jake drove very well to go from ninth to second in the wet and it was great to see Adam get back in the top three, which hopefully will boost him for the rest of the year.”
Jake’s drive from ninth on the grid to second place in a wet opening race was one of the outstanding drives of the weekend; the Kent racer using the excellent balance of his BMW 330e M Sport to pick off his rivals one-by-one and score his 40th career podium.
Part of a thrilling four-way race-long fight for second spot between the title contenders, he added third place in a dry second encounter and then eighth in a bruising finale in which he suffered bodywork damage against a chicane tyre stack.
Jake’s results maintained his third place in the Drivers’ Championship and took him to 10 podiums for the year – more than he’s ever scored in a single season previously.
Team BMW racer Adam started fourth on Race Three’s partially-reversed grid and left it late to pass one of his chief race-long rivals for third – his fourth podium of the year.
The Lancashire racer had earlier finished 12th in a wet opener and ninth in Race Two.
Four-time champion Colin Turkington produced one of the most consistent sets of results of any driver on the grid; the Northern Irishman finishing fifth in the wet before adding fourth and sixth spots in the dry to cement his fourth spot in the points.
His results, combined with those of his three WSR stablemates, kept BMW at the head of the Manufacturers’ points as they chase a record-breaking 10th title.
Large amounts of spray limited Stephen Jelley’s visibility in Race One; the local hero starting 20th and making little progress.
But his dry pace was far stronger; the Leicester racer climbing to a points finish in 13th in Race Two and improving further to end the day with a 10th-place finish.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 8/10
DRIVERS
1/ Ash Sutton – 362 points
2/ Tom Ingram – 320
3/ Jake Hill – 300
4/ Colin Turkington – 263
5/ Dan Cammish – 220
6/ Josh Cook – 211
9/ Adam Morgan – 152
12/ Stephen Jelley – 107
MANUFACTURERS
1/ BMW – 658 points
2/ Ford – 648
3/ Hyundai – 548
4/ Toyota – 471
TEAMS
1/ NAPA Racing UK – 591 points
2/ Team BMW – 450
3/ Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 – 447
4/ Toyota GAZOO Racing UK – 351
5/ One Motorsport with Starline Racing – 338
6/ Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport – 309
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