Adam Morgan took his second British Touring Car Championship victory of the Donington Park GP weekend, and his third in the last two meetings, in Race 3.
Eight years since his last victory at Rockingham, Chris Smiley took pole position as a result of the grid reversal, with in-form Morgan one behind.
Smiley immediately faced challenge from Morgan as the lights went out, but the Restart Racing man just about held the lead through Redgate.
The fight continued into The Esses, with Smiley outbraking Morgan to hold his lead through the first lap. But, the Mercedes would take the lead into McLeans as Aiden Moffat and Dexter Patterson also followed past the Restart Racing Hyundai.
Things went from bad to worse for Smiley as contact saw him half-spin at Melbourne, falling all the way to P7 before getting back past Ricky Collard and Ash Sutton as the pair made contact.
All the fighting at the front allowed Morgan to streak two seconds clear of Moffat, while things got even worse for Restart Racing as Smiley suffered a misfire and retired from the race. Joining him was Dan Rowbottom, who had also been given a 10-second time penalty.
Lap six saw Collard and Sutton engage in battle, with Collard running wide and boxing with a puncture. Patterson’s hard compound-clad Audi started to drop off, as Árón Taylor-Smith moved up into P3 on the same lap.
With all the racing behind him, Morgan continued to charge on and produced a gap of over four seconds to the rest at the halfway mark. Also charging was Daryl De Leon, with the BMW besting Patterson for P4.
On the ninth tour, De Leon would go one further by getting past Taylor-Smith, showing strong pace that had been missing for WSR in the Donington Park GP weekend as he completed his eighth overtake of the race.
Gordon Shedden was also flying high, sitting P5 after dropping down the order in Race 2, as Sutton chased behind the pair of Laser Tools with MB Motorsport Corollas.
While De Leon plowed on to challenge Moffat, Sutton continued to put pressure on the Corolla of Shedden. He looked around the outside at Melbourne on lap 13, before slingshotting by on the exit of Goddards and completing the move at the first turn of the final lap.
At the flag, Morgan took an incredibly convincing victory to mark his second of the weekend. Moffat followed, with De Leon completing the podium.
Taylor-Smith finished P4, Sutton P5, as Charles Rainford stole P6 from Shedden at the post. Josh Cook finished P8, with Tom Ingram and Patterson rounding out the top 10.
Mikey Doble had a strong drive to finish P11, with Lewis Selby, Ryan Bensley, Sam Osborne, and Dan Cammish the final points scorers.
View the full BTCC Donington Park GP Race 3 results below!
Full classification to follow…
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