Second-year British Touring Automobile Championship racer Ronan Pearson took his maiden win within the collection in consummate fashion within the finale at Manufacturers Hatch.
The Scot was armed with a set of soppy tyres upon his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N from reversed-grid pole place, however so was the Energy Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of front-row associate Aron Taylor-Smith.
Taylor-Smith acquired a lightning begin to transfer in entrance when the lights went out, however Pearson muscled his manner again previous the Vauxhall at Clearways to finish the opening lap in entrance.
Pearson was in a position to lengthen a niche of two seconds inside the first 5 laps, with Taylor-Smith simply not having the tempo of the chief and
Chief pursuer of the Vauxhall was Aiden Moffat, his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla additionally on tender tyres, however a technical drawback despatched the Scot into the pits and retirement at half-distance.
Tom Chilton moved as much as third place, additionally on tender rubber in his Excelr8 Hyundai, with Ash Sutton, in flip, homing in on the wheel of his soft-shod Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST, as soon as he had demoted medium-tyred team-mate Dan Cammish.
Chilton seemed feisty in third place, and at last pulled off a spectacular transfer at Paddock Hill Bend with 5 laps remaining, throwing the Hyundai down the within of Taylor-Smith, and knocking the Vauxhall large as he managed his wild slide.
That allowed Sutton previous Taylor-Smith too, however the reigning champion had nothing for Chilton, who crossed the road 3.665 seconds behind the victorious Pearson.
Picture by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Sutton, as a substitute, needed to carry on his toes to fend off Taylor-Smith, who didn’t surrender the chase.
“This has been such an extended street,” mentioned former Mini Problem star Pearson. “To be a BTCC race winner is simply unimaginable. Somebody was peeling onions on my in-lap I reckon!
“The automobile was unimaginable. Tom Ingram’s engineer and my engineer mentioned, ‘In the event you’ve acquired an honest buffer not each lap must be a qualifying lap’, nevertheless it in all probability was. You may’t afford to lose your focus.”
Cammish did properly to keep up a correspondence on his medium tyres to assert fifth, whereas Dan Rowbottom made it three Alliance Fords within the prime six.
Colin Turkington, winner of the primary two races of the day in his West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport, couldn’t discover a well past the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Andrew Watson for seventh.
Rob Huff was ninth in his Speedworks Toyota forward of the WSR BMW of Adam Morgan.
Whereas there was Excelr8 pleasure at its 1-2, its lead driver Tom Ingram misplaced the championship result in Sutton. He acquired as much as seventh from eleventh on the grid earlier than being compelled to the pits to interchange a punctured left-front tyre.
Sutton, regardless of having no BTCC wins thus far in 2024, has now leapfrogged interim chief Turkington to the highest of the championship by two factors, with Ingram eight additional adrift.