Car God Morgan powers to second victory of the 2021 BTCC race season
Adam Morgan blasted his Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport BMW 330i M Sport to a second win of the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship season at Thruxton, Hampshire, yesterday, to vault up to sixth in the championship.
Adam, who had been in the mix all day, started the final race of the day on pole position, benefitting from the reverse grid system that drew him for the first place on the grid. Adam made a peach of a start and bolted into the lead from the factory-supported BMW of Colin Turkington, but their battle was interrupted by an early safety car period after Gordon Shedden and Jade Edwards tangled in their Honda Civics at the first corner.
Adam left his restart late but still managed to get the drop on Colin once more, the Bowker BMW-backed machine edging away to up the margin to around half a second before a second safety car period was needed after an accident at the Complex. As soon as the road was cleared the action resumed and Adam again bolted away to protect his lead as Turkington, who was carrying 39 kilos of success ballast to Adam’s 21, tried to stay with him. Turkington needed to be careful of the pack behind with the lighter Honda Civic of Senna Proctor bearing down on him. Just as The Morganator looked to be safe, a third safety car period was called for after Ollie Jackson’s Ford became stranded trackside and Adam had to control another restart. He did so perfectly, but his front right tyre was starting to suffer and Adam made a tiny error heading into the chicane, which forced him to use the escape road rather than try to make the corner. That enabled him to pull away from Turkington, but Adam eased his pace a little so as not to have been adjudged to have gained an unfair advantage and that allowed Turkington to get closer again late race.
Adam held on, however, to a 10th career win and the second of the season for Car Gods and Ciceley Motorsport operating its new car.
Speaking to ITV post-race, Adam said: “It’s always hard in a reverse grid race because they seem to throw everything at you like three safety car periods! My Mac Tools supported car felt great in that race and all the tweaks that we have made over the weekend all came good and it has been getting better and better.
“There was immense pressure in that race from Colin but I’ve done a lot of training in the iZone sim and all that experience paid off but I did make a little mistake at the chicane and locked up. I knew I wasn’t going to make the corner so it was safer to miss the corner rather than risk going off. I had Colin in my mirrors, he was applying pressure and I missed the braking point by a metre. My front right tyre was really worn but could I have held Colin off if he’d caught me? Yes.
“My engineer Steve Farrell was on the radio suggesting I should back it off and my tyre was well worn anyway, but a win is a win. It’s a mega result for the whole Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport team.”
Adam had started the day sixth on the grid for the opening race and netted a seventh place at the finish of a frantic race, while he took eighth in race two after being involved in plenty of battles along the way. In race one, Adam felt the car wasn’t perfect and, “felt like a passenger rather than driving the car,” but with success ballast in race two the car felt much better.
“WSR has been a great help but it is really satisfying for an independent team like ours to beat the works cars.”
The second Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport BMW of Tom Chilton netted 14th in the opening race, Tom’s 400thBTCC start but struggled in races two and three to finish 17th.
Ciceley Motorsport’s Commercial Director Norman Burgess said: “That was a fantastic day for Adam and for the whole team. Thruxton is an important circuit for Car Gods with lots of trackside sponsorship and all of our guests were delighted with a great day of racing as well as Adam’s win. He drove brilliantly to fend off the renowned BMW master Colin Turkington, so that is a major boost for him as a driver and us as a team as well as vindicating our decision to go with the BMWs this year. He’s up to sixth in the championship and our Haydock Finance-backed cars just keep on improving the more we learn, so we can’t wait to go to Croft now and aim for more wins.”
Adam is now up to sixth in the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship and fourth in the Independent Drivers title race, with Tom 21st overall. Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport lies eighth in the Teams’ Championship and fifth in the Independent Teams’ contest.
