Jackson takes remarkable win

Mat Jackson took a remarkable victory in the second British Touring Car race at Silverstone to give the NGTC Ford Focus its first success.

After suffering a throttle problem while leading race one, Jackson had to start the second encounter from row nine.

While the Motorbase driver made his way though the field, race one winner Jason Plato led in his Triple Eight-run works MG6.

Plato had pulled three seconds clear of Rob Collard’s fast-starting WSR BMW when title rival Matt Neal’s Honda caught fire around half-distance and brought out the safety car.

By then, Jackson had made it up to fifth and he quickly demoted team-mate Aron Smith (S2000 Focus) at the restart.

The NGTC Focus then dived by Dave Newsham’s ES Racing Vauxhall Vectra for third at Brooklands with seven laps to go.

Jackson was just lining up Collard for second when an electrical problem struck Plato. Collard swept by the MG, but was almost immediately overtaken by Jackson, who then pulled away to take his third win of 2012.

Collard, Newsham and Smith were next, with Rob Austin’s Audi A4 completing the top five.

There was a huge battle behind. After chasing his WSR team-mate Nick Foster for several laps, Tom Onslow-Cole found a way by at Becketts on the penultimate tour to finish sixth.

Gordon Shedden’s works Honda also got a run on the struggling BMW out of Copse on the final lap, and Foster was further demoted by Dan Welch – who had impressively charged up from row 10 in his Proton – and Andrew Jordan’s Eurotech Honda Civic.

With Neal and Plato both retiring, Shedden’s seventh means he has now extended his championship lead to 21 points with just the Silverstone reversed-grid race and Brands Hatch meeting still to go.

Results to follow.

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/other-news/touring-cars/btcc/jackson-takes-remarkable-win

Jeremy Allan Mayfield James Christopher McMurray Casey James Mears Juan Pablo Montoya Joseph Francis Nemechek III