Andrew Jordan has doubled-up at Brands Hatch after scoring a lights-to-flag victory in round two of the 2014 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.
Honda Yuasa Racing's Gordon Shedden took second after benefitting from Jason Plato failing to get his MG off the grid when the lights went out, and an early incident between his team-mate Matt Neal and the eBay Motors BMW of Rob Collard.
Shedden kept Jordan honest throughout, but the reigning champion held on to win from the Scotsman and the hard charging BMW 125i M Sport of Colin Turkington.
"This is what we do it for – to win," said Jordan. "I could see one of the BMWs was coming strong, and thankfully the safety car backed Shedden up and kept him off my tail a bit. I’d already started to gap Gordon before it came out so knew I had the pace to stay in front as long as I didn’t make any mistakes. It’s another cracking result and one of the harder wins I’ve had to work for."
Disaster struck third row starter Rob Austin when his car broke down on the grid ahead of the green flag lap, and he was unable to take the start. Plato's MG6 then stalled as the lights went out, leaving Jordan to streak away with the early lead. His advantage was helped when Neal's Civic Tourer lightly touched Collard's BMW and both cars slid wildly through Paddock Hill Bent. Both recovered but not before Shedden slipped by into second and the impressive Nick Foster slotted himself between Neal and Collard. Plato did eventually get going but at the rear of the field - he would eventually finish 14th.
Chris Stockton's Chevrolet had beached itself in the gravel before both Aron Smith and Sam Tordoff endured lurid moments before the first tour was even completed, and the first safety car of the season was deployed on lap two.
Turkington was immediately on the attack following the restart and pulled two almost identical moves out of the bag when he shot down the inside of his team-mates Collard and Foster at Paddock Hill Bend. The recovering Smith had his Dunlop Sport Maxx soft tyre-shod VW CC moving up the order as he passed Fabrizio Giovanardi's Ford Focus and Tom Ingram's Toyota in quick succession. The Irishman was back up to seventh but his progress was halted thereafter as he failed to haul himself inside the top six.
Neal succumbed to an attack from Turkington on the run up to Druids at the mid-distance stage of the race and that was to be the last change in the top order. "I was a bit downbeat after race one," said Turkington after claiming his first podium of the season. "The BMW was on fire in that one though and I definitely had the pace to take it to the front two. I’m well chuffed for the eBay Motors team with this podium, and being on the soft tyre for race three could be interesting. We think our car will be one of the strongest on those tyres, but we’ll just have to wait and see!"
There was a further spell behind the safety car late on when Marc Hynes' MG made contact with Martin Depper's Honda at Graham Hill Bend, firing off the Civic and into the barrier at high speed. Hynes has been excluded from the race result following the incident.
Adam Morgan took eighth in the WIX Racing Mercedes A-Class from Ingram and Giovanardi, with the Italian getting the honours to pick out the ball for the reversed grid race three draw. Giovanardi said he could 'kill his chances' ahead of the draw and that's unfortunately what he did when he picked out the No.6 ball, meaning Collard and Foster complete an all-BMW front row for the final contest of the day.
Click here for the race two classification. Race three takes place at 17:00 and will be broadcast live on ITV4.
