Jordan dominates for fourth win of 2019

BMW Pirtek Racing's Andrew Jordan strengthens his British Touring Car Championship title bid after dominating the first race of the day at Croft.

The 2013 BTCC champion continued his rich vein of form by leading every lap from pole position to record his fourth win of the season, moving him closer to the championship summit following his earlier Donington Park woes.

As predicted, Jordan successfully retained his lead from pole position ahead of BTC Racing's Chris Smiley but saw the lead he assembled during the opening half of the race wiped out thanks to a lengthy safety car period from lap seven - triggered by the retirement of Rob Collard.

Although the safety car brought Smiley and the rest of the pack back into contention, Jordan managed to streak away with the relative ease once the race was restarted before eventually cruising across the line for a near 2.0s victory.

Smiley followed the BMW 330i M Sport home in second position, recording his first podium finish of 2019 in the process. Smiley's route to second place was made somewhat easier thanks to ferocious battle for the final step on the rostrum behind.

Third place ultimately went the way of Motorbase Performance's Tom Chilton, but only after laps of resolute defence from the Ford driver. Chilton found himself under severe pressure from championship leader Colin Turkington in fourth.

Turkington came close to passing Chilton on a number of occasions, but was unable to fashion a decisive move on the Ford Focus RS.

The Team BMW driver settled for fourth ahead of his West Surrey Racing stablemate Tom Oliphant in fifth.

Dan Cammish and Ashley Sutton traded places from qualifying with the Honda driver gaining the upper hand on his Subaru rival to take sixth ahead of the 2017 champion.

Power Maxed Racing's Jason Plato took advantage of Ollie Jackson's opening race woes and a small error from BTC Racing's Josh Cook to finish in eighth, while Cook and Matt Neal rounded out the top-ten in ninth and tenth.