TV recap: Croft (part 1)

TV Recap - BTCC Croft
1600, ITV3

And we're back with another nice slice of BTCC action over on ITV's third most popular channel. Hey - at least they've got rid of the ITV3 dog! Kravitz welcomes us faithful viewers to sunny Croft, the only visit to anywhere remotely resembling The North™ this season. Ted's sorted out his shirt this time, collars all tucked in present and correct. He still looks like a wannabe-Top Gear presenter though. Plato and Giovanardi are the guys to beat points-wise but it's Shedden on pole.

Apparently Jason grew up around here, so that means it's time for yet another Life With Plato featurette, hooray! And we even get a bit of ST footage with Coxy commentating. Louise is interviewing Jason on one of the grassy banks at Croft, both of them being extremely rude and ignoring whatever support is race going on behind. Plato waffles about ballast, how tight the championship is this year etc, while I realise it's a Clio race they're ignoring. Sacrilege!

...and speaking of Plato, we're on board with him for a lap around this "tight and twisty" Croft circuit. Tim uses the phrase "hard on" far too much for anyone's liking - at least four times on this lap. Not an image anyone wants in their head.

Louise, standing on the grid, tells is it's now over to Ben with the starting grid. That seemed a bit of an unnecessary link. Turkington's "fast-starting" (chug) BMW lines up second, could be the man to watch out for. Amazingly, Ben doesn't say "we're all set for Round 10" but instead "Round 10 is ready to roll!" Another missed drinking opportunity there.... but no time to ponder as we'reeeeee off! Turkington shoots into the lead as a few cars kick up the dust at turn 1. Some great onboard footage with Tom Chilton as he battles with some 2-year old SEATs. He missed Le Mans for this you know! Meanwhile Matt Neal "wheel to wheel" with Turkington but he can't get around... cool onboard with Neal, you can make out the disco-glitter on the side flashes. Lap 4 - big cloud of dust, apparently Erkut is off. Or maybe it's Pinkney, as we see a rather dented looking 156 grind to a half. Nice new colour scheme though, the pink sunstrip clashing horrendously with the new shade of red. Lovely. A reply reveals Erkut taking a spectacular ride through the gravel, with Pinkney then lining up a move on his inside. "Two into one doesn't go.." cries Tim, as the reply comes to an abrupt end, so I guess we'll never know what happened. Well that sucked.

Lap 5 - what is Turner's beef with Allison? Are SEAT paying Darren to take out the Motorbase cars so they don't embarrass the works guys? Whatever, remember at Thruxton Darren shunted Matt resulting in one re-shelled Toledo rqeuired, and now Turner knocks a couple of tyres onto the track and it's Allison who takes the full whack. Bummer. Narrowly avoids a big accident that man (video). Meanwhile Richard Marsh has whacked some tyres, and Murray''s car is cruising. So, the Alfas are as reliable in the BTCC as they are in real life. The OC and Allison pit, and still no safety cars despite debris and loose tyres everywhere... heck, they put a safety car out when there was a small speck on the track at Rockingham, some consistency people!

Lap 7 - the OC is back out of the pits, just ahead of Turkington. Hmm, I smell some team tactics afoot... he lets Colin through but isn't so kind to Matt. In fact, Matt gets impatient, nerfs Tom and Shedden hops up the 2nd. Neal will be "fuming" says Ben. The OC retires hurt and Louise gets a chat with him. The tyres are out on the circuit for "safety reasons" apparently, oh the irony... Turkington is pulling away nicely now, on course for BMW's first BTCC win since 1996: Ravalgia at the GP support race, remember him? As the race closes, it's actually quite dull, so dull that Tim and Ben discuss the technicalities of the success ballast system. However, Turkington takes the "dominant" win and the guys in (bright) orange are chuffed. Ted tells us to be right back after the break for even more...