Mikey Doble, Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
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Mikey Doble clung on in the face of an attack from Ash Sutton to claim his maiden British Touring Car Championship race win in the finale at Snetterton.
With Doble starting on reversed-grid pole, and his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra the only car in the top six on soft tyres, this looked like a golden opportunity for the Surrey man to break his duck.
But a lengthy safety car period caused when Stephen Jelley’s Honda made heavy contact with the barriers at Oggies after contact from a BMW threw Doble’s tyre advantage into jeopardy.
By the time the safety car was called, Josh Cook had already worked his soft-shod One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R into fourth place after some hectic first-lap battling with Sutton and Charles Rainford. And only the Hyundai i30 N Fastbacks of Dan Lloyd (Restart Racing) and Adam Morgan (Excelr8 Motorsport), both on hard tyres, separated this trio from Doble.
At the restart, Cook got down the inside of Morgan at the hairpin, but Lloyd proved a tougher nut to crack. Although the Honda got through at Agostini, it ran wide and Lloyd was back ahead, only for Cook to finally make second position his at the esses.
Sutton quickly got past Lloyd too, but took another couple of laps to deal with Cook.
By the time the championship leader had worked his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST into second place, Doble was 1.680 seconds to the good, but Sutton had one more lap of TOCA Turbo Boost in hand.
Mikey Doble, Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Doble went without TTB four laps from home, and Sutton used his boost advantage to move right onto the Vauxhall’s rear bumper.
From then on Doble never cracked, defending the inside of the hairpin until Sutton ran wide here on the penultimate lap. That gave Doble the break he needed and he won by 0.770s.
Cook was third while, a long way behind, Tom Ingram stormed through from the back of the grid in his Excelr8 Hyundai to take fourth from Sam Osborne’s Alliance Ford on the penultimate lap.
Dan Cammish was another on a recovery after sinking down the field in race two on hard tyres, and he came out on top of a hectic scrap for sixth from the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sports of Charles Rainford and Jake Hill, and Ronan Pearson’s Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla. The top 10 was completed by Aiden Moffat (WSR BMW).
Results to follow
Source: Autosport