Back in May, if you were to tell me that Colin Turkington would be fifth in the championship going into the final round, and in with a shot at the title, I would have laughed. It’s been a challenging season for Turkington, especially at the start when nothing seemed to go right for Team BMR, but they managed to turn it around, with Turkington taking podium after podium and a number of wins over the second half of the season.
Colin Turkington’s championship points this season
It’s probably a sign of a difficult year when the first race of the season ends in retirement. To be fair to Turkington and the team, it wasn’t his fault. Contact meant he was forced to come into the pits and retire from the race – a long way off some of the more disastrous Subaru retirements. Race two ended without points as well, but Turkington was able to take four away after a twelfth in the final race of the weekend.
Donington Park went much better for Turkington than his fellow Subaru drivers. He was the only one to come away from the track with points, and things seemed to be going well until more contact and a puncture took him out of race two.
So far, things hadn’t been going too badly for Turkington. His car hadn’t even caught fire. The team was still a little anxious about the possible flamibility of the car, so BMR made the decision to withdraw from all three races at Thruxton, on safety grounds. It meant, after nine races, Turkington only had ten points.
Things quickly turned around at Oulton Park, though.
Turkington started the weekend as he meant to go on, storming into pole position in qualifying ahead of team mate Jason Plato, before a lights to flag victory in the first race of the weekend. Not only was it Turkington’s first win of the season, it was Subaru’s first British Touring Car Championship win. A historical race win.
The second race didn’t go quite to plan, with Sam Tordoff stealing Turkington’s lead early on in the race, but he eventually crossed the line in third. The reverse grid for race three inevitably made things a little more difficult, but Turkington would still walk away from the race with a top ten finish.
Proving Oulton wasn’t just a fluke started with Turkington taking his second consecutive pole at Croft. It wasn’t quite as clean a race as Oulton Park – contact with Dan Lloyd resulting in the Honda retiring from the race – but the result was the same. A second win for Turkington and for Subaru. Race two consisted of a strong battle with team mate Plato that ended with Turkington finishing third before a difficult race three saw the Northern Irish driver finish fifth.
That was really where Turkington’s season so far has peaked, but his performance hasn’t returned to the start of season slump. Turkington has taken one more win and three other podiums in the final part of the season, and has only finished outside the points on one occasion in the second half of the season.
A breakdown of Turkington’s finishes this season
Turkington enters the final round of the championship fifth overall, and thirty four points behind the championship leader. It’s definitely doable – after all, he scored forty six points at Oulton Park, but taking the title would also need some bad luck for those ahead of him.
It will be a close fight should Turkington see another strong weekend like Oulton Park or Croft, and one he would probably be the underdog in, but, like team mate Jason Plato, he can’t be ruled out.
Image Credit: Caroline Rhea
