Team BMW's Colin Turkington cruised to take what could prove to be a vital British Touring 🦋Car Championship victory in race three at Croft after easing away from series heaꦜvyweights Gordon Shedden and Ash Sutton.

The four-time champion took full advantage of starting the rever🌼se grid race from pole position to lead every corner of the race on his way to a 59th career BTCC race victory.

Turkington started the race a full 40-poin🐟ts behind championship leader Sutton, but has now narrowly trimmed the gap to 35-points with jus🍌t three rounds to go.

Such was Turkington's level of margin, the BMW 330i M Sport driver romped cꦍlear to a near four-second victory ahead of Team Dynamics driver Gordon Shedden.

Unlike Turkington, Shedden's ไroute to second position wasn't as plain sailing with reigning champion Sutton pushing the former three-time champion every inch of the way during the reverse grid encounter.

With a potential third drivers' title looming large for Sutton, the Laser Tools Racing driver could ill-afford a mishap with the Honda Civic Type R of Shedden. However, Shedden was inch perfect in the defence of his second pl👍ace, leaving Sutton li💙ttle opportunity to pounce.

Excler8 Motorsport's Tom Ingram scored another strong fourth place finish in the Hy🎃undai, ahead of fellow title contender Josh Cook in fifth.

Aiden Moffat consolidated what has been by far his strongest weekend of the season with mo𒉰re points in sixth, while race two winner Jake Hill battled with maximum success ball꧋ast to seventh.

Senna Proctor, Dan Rowbottom and Tom Chilton completed the remaind♓er of the toಞp-ten order in eighth, ninth and tenth.