BTCC resumed this weekend after it’s Summer break and wow, did it return with a bang! For us, most of the stomach gripping moments were in Race 3.

Firstly, young Aiden Moffat for Laser Tools Racing, set aside his recovery from tonsillitis and powered from 29^th on the grid to 12^th. At the end of his race, Aiden’s Mercedes didn’t have a scratch on it. Bear in mind that Aiden is still only 20 years old, but is keeping very well established and respected drivers like Turkington and Plato at bay on more than one occasion this season.

The race itself had quite a lot of close contact between cars, in all sections of the pack. The two MG cars both had frontal damage and there was a ‘was it/wasn’t it a nudge’ forcing one of the leading cars off towards end of the race too.

But, it was Team Hard’s Jake Hill who had perhaps the best race weekend of his life. When an ITV4 commentator states “it’s only a matter of time until he wins a race”, you know he’s being noticed in the right circles, and rightly so on this occasion as he would have scared the leading drivers in this meeting in their rear view mirrors.

Sitting at the back of the leading pack for most of the race, Hill was unfortunate to lose a position, dropping him to eighth a couple of laps from the end. One would have congratulated Hill at this stage as his whole day had been really quite spectacular. However, Hill wouldn’t give up, far from it, and spectators saw the driver lead the chase to regain position with plumes of brake smoke from his VW Passat CC as he tried out braking the 2 other rival cars nudging him for position.

In the end, it was another’s misfortune that gave Hill back his 7^th place spot, when Andrew Jordan, who had been leading the race for most of the time, suddenly went into limp mode either with (presumably) fuel or electrical issues. Strangely, after dropping back, Jordan found his mojo again, possibly while doing a rolling re-boot, before again going back into limp mode. One for telemetrics and the mechanics in time for the next race further North of this East Anglian track.

Whilst 7^th wasn’t quite a full podium place for Hill, one could really feel that with a little luck on his side, Hill could have finished top 3 in this race. He looked confident, and at times domineering as he held his own in corners and took the race line with legal aggression. He’s only a small guy out of the car, but we reckon Jake must have felt 10 feet tall at the end of that race. He certainly gave us spectators a really entertaining race. Roll on Knockhill in 2 weeks time!

Photo Credit to Ian Cutting Photography.