Colin Turkington
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| Colin Turkington | |
|---|---|
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| 2008 BTCC driver | |
| Nationality |  |
| Nickname | - |
| Car # | 5 |
| Team | Team RAC |
| Car | BMW 320si E90 |
| Championships | 0 |
| Wins | 12 |
| Podium finishes | 46 |
| Poles | 8 |
| Fastest laps | 16 |
| Debut season | 2002 |
| Best championship result | 3rd (2006) |
| 2008 position | 5th (98 points) |
Colin Henry Turkington is an auto racing driver from Portadown in Northern Ireland, born on 21 March 1982. He began his racing career in karting, moved on to the Ford Credit Fiesta Zetec Championship (which he won in 2001) and then onto the BTCC in 2002.
His first BTCC drive was in a year-old MG sponsored by the pop group Atomic Kitten. He did well enough to move up to the manufacturer-backed team for 2003, winning his first race at Brands Hatch and finishing 8th in the championship than year. Despite the loss of official MG backing he finished 6th in 2004, adding another win to his tally at his home circuit of Mondello Park. For 2005 he replaced champion James Thompson at Vauxhall. While Yvan Muller challenged for the title, Colin finished down in 6th place, despite taking pole at the season-opener [1]. This performance was apparently not good enough to retain the seat for the following season.
For 2006, he rejoined West Surrey Racing to drive an RAC backed MG ZS alongside Rob Collard, driving car number 6. A strong first half of the season made him the closest challenger to Matt Neal for the title [2], although Jason Plato pipped him to 2nd overall in the final race of the year due to some bad luck when in strong scoring positions. Late in the season the team switched to bio-ethanol fuel [3], nearly becoming the first team to win a race with it. Overall he took 2 wins and 14 podiums.
For 2007 the MG was no longer eligible to win the championship outright, so the team have purchased two BMW 320si E90's, with Tom-Onslow Cole joining Colin. His first win (and BMW's first in the BTCC for over a decade) came in round 4 at Croft [4], where he also took a third place finish[5]. After the team swept the front row at Snetterton [6] he won race 1, only to be disqualified as the car was underweight [7].
Turkington was elected to the MSA's Race Elite Scheme in April 2007, along with 5 other drivers in various British series. He has also done TV work, presenting a BBC Northern Ireland look at environmental damage in 2002 [8]
Turkington competed with West Surrey Racing in the Brands Hatch and Macao rounds of the World Touring Car Championship in 2007 as a wild card. In Brands Hatch, he finished third in the first race on the 'virtual podium' and finished fourth in the second race but as his car wasn't homologated because of its sequential gearbox he did not collect race points. In Macao, he finished successively fourteenth and eighth of the two races.
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