Turkington ‘back in the game’ after strong weekend

Team BMW’s Colin Turkington says he’s ‘back in the game’ after recharging his 2018 British Touring Car Championship campaign following a strong showing at Thruxton.

The two-time champion arrived at the third meeting of the season sitting tenth in the points standings, but has since risen back up to fifth in the table after securing two podium finishes.

Turkington came close to winning the opening two races at Thruxton, but the BMW 125i M Sport driver ultimately had to play second fiddle to Matt Neal and Josh Cook, before scoring another vital fifth place finish in race three.

Nevertheless, second place in race one proved to be another landmark moment in Turkington’s BTCC career after the Team BMW driver scored his 125th podium finish in the series.

“It’s been a really positive weekend. A strong haul of points where maybe somewhere we’ve traditionally not been able to do that. I leave here really happy,” Turkington told Crash.net.

“The car was really strong in qualifying and race trim. I feel like we’re back in the game a bit. Results like that give you a bit of confidence – job done.

“We just needed a trouble free weekend. To score two podiums is tough to do. It’s job done for us this weekend.”

Having notched up the highest amount of points (47) of any driver over the weekend, Turkington believes his West Surrey Racing extracted everything they could have from the BMW 125i M Sport machine.

“I suppose I was surprised by my pace in race two. We were clever and raced well but you just can’t predict the pace or how you’re going to do. You’ve just got to get your head, which we did,” Turkington continued.

“Obviously it helps when you start at the front and get away so you can drop the pack a bit. It was a perfect day for us.

“We got the maximum from our car all weekend. It’s always good to win but any time you’re hitting the podium is good.”