The waves part for Turkington and BMW

“There are no gifts here… Well, maybe the last corner was!” Colin Turkington had to qualify one of his well-used pearls of British Touring Car Championship wisdom following a frankly barmy, moonlit race into the dusk at Snetterton. From third in the standings, he leapt to the top of the heap going into the final round at Brands Hatch, thanks largely to an absolutely exquisite weekend performance aboard his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330i M Sport.

Turkington was supreme through the experimental two-stage qualifying format and then the first two races, which he led all the way and gained fastest lap for good measure. That was 45 points out of 45. But then he would have to start the reversed-grid finale from 10th on the grid, with 60kg of success ballast on his BMW, and so far this season that had not been ideal Turkington territory, perhaps the area in which this cultured, measured and methodical competitor falls a little short compared to the ferocious terrier-like qualities of main title rival Ash Sutton. But at Snetterton, ‘cultured, measured and methodical’ worked…

“I could see there was a hefty battle [for third position] between Tom [Ingram] and Rory [Butcher],” he recounted. “I had excellent pace but I would have been happy with P5.” Fifth was, indeed, the position to which Turkington had risen, thanks to unseemly panel-bashing warfare involving