Mikey Doble took victory in the British Touring Car Championship finale at Croft, a race in which all of the overall series contenders were involved in accidents.
The Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon starlet let all the way from reversed-grid pole position while, of the championship top four Ash Sutton, Tom Ingram and Ricky Collard were all eliminated, while Dan Cammish finished a lapped last.
Doble had PMR Audi team-mate Aiden Moffat alongside him on the front row, but Doble had soft tyres while Moffat was on the hard rubber.
That didn’t prevent the Scot drawing alongside into the first corner, but Doble clung on in front.
Behind there was chaos. Ricky Collard gave Dan Cammish a chop up to the first corner of Clervaux, but Cammish kept his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium on the inside. Cammish, squeezed onto the inside kerb, got launched into Collard’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback as he landed.
Collard was knocked into a spin, and tagged Ash Sutton’s Alliance Ford, which in turn speared into the CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon of Dan Rowbottom. Further back, Aron Taylor-Smith was hit into Lewis Selby and, with Collard and Taylor-Smith stranded, the safety car emerged.
Ashley Sutton, NAPA Racing UK
Photo by: JEP
At the restart, Moffat came under attack from the Excelr8 Hyundai of Tom Chilton, and a nudge from the Surrey veteran at Sunny sent the Audi wide, allowing Chilton into second and Gordon Shedden’s Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport into third.
From here the top three was settled, with Doble leading home Chilton and Shedden. Behind the Scottish three-time BTCC champion, Adam Morgan gradually closed up in his CPRL Mercedes, with Josh Cook – up from the back of the grid in his Speedworks Toyota – right on his bootlid.
Some way adrift Moffat did a good job to finish at the top runner on hard tyres in sixth, just about fending off a last-lap attack from the Restart Racing Hyundai of Chris Smiley.
Smiley’s team-mate Dan Lloyd was eighth, with Dexter Patterson (PMR Audi) and Rowbottom completing the top 10.
Ingram’s Excelr8 Hyundai was taken out when he was the victim of some furious midfield jostling at the Jim Clark Esses. With Charles Rainford (WSR BMW) moving over on him, he was sent on a high-speed bounce backwards across the grass and into eventual retirement at the pits.
BTCC Croft – Race 3 results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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