COLIN Turkington has vowed to “set a positive example” to the next generation of British Touring Car Championship drivers after on-track incidents at Croft on Sunday severely dented his title aspirations.
Turkington made the remarks after coming to blows with NAPA Racing UK’s Ashley Sutton in Sunday’s second sprint, and Bristol Street Motors-backed driver Tom Ingram in the day’s reversed grid contest. Nicknamed ‘King of Croft’ because of his previous win record there, Turkington began the weekend in strong fashion as he recorded the quickest time in qualifying to start race one on pole position. A time of one minute 21.07 seconds secured him a seventh front row start there and the 29th of his career. With clear air in front of him and a sizeable hybrid allocation, the Portadown man maintained a healthy gap to take the chequered flag in his BMW 330e M Sport car by three tenths of a second from Ingram.
Starting on pole for the second race, a similar outcome was expected only for Ingram to squeeze past in the early stages before Sutton misjudged his braking and punted Turkington off the track on the run down to ‘Tower Bend’. Despite carrying damage, he rejoined the action and came home in ninth spot.
A weekend that started on a real high for Turkington ended on a sour note for him as his charge up the field towards the podium places in the final race concluded with him finishing down in fourteenth spot.
As he battled Ingram for the same piece of Tarmac at the Jim Clark Esses, he ran out of space and ran onto the grass before hitting a tyre wall. Despite the front of his car sustaining heavy cosmetic damage, his decision to continue racing instead of retiring to the pits was rewarded with a points-paying result.
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Turkington was anything but happy at the actions and decision-making of Sutton and Ingram, and post meeting decided to take his views to the stewards’ room where he was joined by Carl Mitchell – the Team Manager and Sporting Operations Manager at West Surrey Racing.
His BMW team-mate Jake Hill was also on the receiving end of questionable moves at Croft and spoke on the record about the need for retrospective action ahead of the visit to Knockhill in Scotland on the weekend of August 10/11.
“If you can’t say anything good, it’s best to say nothing at all,” four-time champion Turkington posted in a brief social media post on Facebook. “Driving standards dealt me big blows today. I’ve driven my heart out all weekend but sadly only one good result to show. Heartbroken for the number 20 crew.”
He added: “I will continue to do my best to set a positive example to the youth coming up through [the ranks] and we will hope to keep this rapid pace up at the next three rounds at Knockhill in Scotland.”
After Sunday’s triple-header around the 2.1-mile circuit, Turkington remains sixth overall in the series’ standings – but the gap to those above him has grown. With a provisional 178 points total, he is now 75 behind 2022 British Touring Car Champion Ingram, who has displaced Hill at the summit.