Turner out of luck at Brands.

Having qualified on the front row of the grid, Darren Turner endured a trying race day at Brands Hatch as luck once again went against the SEAT driver in the latest rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

Turner qualified just 0.002secs behind Colin Turkington to secure his place on the front row of the grid, and was lucky to escape the accident on the opening lap of race one that wiped out half of the field.

On the restart, he ran in second place behind Turkington before running wide at Paddock and dropping to sixth, although he was able to recover by the finish and take advantage of problems for some of the cars ahead to take third behind Fabrizio Giovanardi and team-mate Jason Plato.

Race two would prove to be a short-lived affair for Turner as he was caught up in an incident involving the RAC BMWs of Turkington and Tom Onslow-Cole. As the lights went green, Onslow-Cole went for a gap between Turkington and Turner but three-into-one wouldn't go and the trio made contact. Having been pushed into the pit wall, Turner was forced to retire before Paddock Hill with damaged suspension.

From 16th on the grid for the final race, Turner made moves into the top ten before latching onto the rear of a train headed by the battling Onslow-Cole and Adam Jones. When the pair made contact at Graham Hill Bend, Jones spun in front of Turner and with nowhere to go, he hit the SEAT Toledo. With his car damaged, Turner could do nothing more than limp to the finish down in 15th place to secure vital manufacturers' championship points.

"I was happy with qualifying and I was happy with the opening race," he said. "I finished third, I had a challenge for the lead which didn't work, dropped to sixth and came back, so I was quite pleased with that. I didn't really have a second race, because I was pushed into the wall before I got to the first corner.

"The lads did a great job to fix the car and in the final race I got wiped out again through no fault of my own. I made a good start, but didn't have the ultimate race pace I was hoping for, and in the middle of the pack we just all bunched up. Tom Onslow-Cole and Adam Jones came together at the bottom of Graham Hill Bend and I overtook Gavin Smith on the inside by following Jason through. Unluckily, Adam bounced back right in front of me and there wasn't anything I could do to miss him.

"It was a reasonably large impact, but the team told me to get the car across the line to score manufacturer points, so that's what I did."