Steve Laidlaw made it two from two at Silverstone to move up into second place in the TCR UK championship standings as the Area Motorsport racer begins to apply pressure on series leader Adam Shepherd.

Despite starting in tenth place in the reverse grid encounter the Middle East domiciled driver made the most of a confused grid avoiding Shepherd who stalled on the grid and moved into sixth place into the first turn. Diving inside a gaggle of cars headed by Pole sitter Mark Smith (Leon Competicion,) the Cupra VZ racer emerged in third heading onto the Wellington Straight. Through Brooklands he was on the rear of George Jaxon (Audi RS3 LMS) who moved to make an outside move on Smith into Luffield. Laidlaw was able to move inside of the pair as they battled and squeezed into the lead by Woodcote, crossing the line in first place having made up 10 places on the opening lap.

Behind the leader Brad Hutchison appeared in second after the lead pack managed to keep proceedings to a surprisingly clean opening lap. Mark Smith had third going into Copse on lap two with a fast and fired up Luke Sargeant on the outside with the Audi racer inevitably cutting inside to grab the spot, but Sargeant had to account for Callum Newsham trying to cut inside in the revitalised i30N, which he managed into turn two. Sargeant now had Sam Laidlaw putting him under pressure while Jaxon managed to pull a move on Smith for sixth.

By the end of the first lap Shepherd was five seconds off the back of the field. The Cupra VZ took almost 20 seconds to reboot to get away from the line. Apart from a pre-season test in a VZ at Barcelona, the weekend could not just be a test and bedding in exercise, despite having built a decent championship lead in the now retired Competicion Shepherd could not hang around to allow the Laidlaw pair to eat into those points.

Initially Newsham came under pressure from Sargeant, but a slight lock up into Brooklands allowed the Hyundai driver to break the assault leaving Sergeant to come under attack from Sam Laidlaw with the Audi and Cupra VZ going to war for the first half of the race.

While Steve Laidlaw settled into picking up where he left off in race one, Hutchison – whose Leon Competicion was below its optimal performance – was easily passed by Newsham around the outside into Brooklands. The pace differential between the Leon and the i30 – with it’s recent BoP weight reduction – was surprising, with the older machine easily disposing the Cupra into third, which would set the podium positions with just under a quarter of the competition gone.

Shepherd took 10 minutes to break into the top 10, setting a fastest lap in the process that was almost four tenths quicker than the fastest lap of the leader, signalling intent for race three where Shepherd will start on pole with Steve Laidlaw third. It looked like there was an opportunity to at least reach the podium battle, but his move through the field was halted when the battle between Sargeant and Sam Laidlaw would see both cars end up in the barriers exiting Copse.

With half the race gone Laidlaw Jr managed to rotate around the outside of Sargeant through Luffield and the pair ripped through Woodcote side-by-side. The Cupra was just ahead as the pair turned into Copse. There appeared to be contact that sent the cars in opposite directions with Laidlaw heading right and Sargeant left. The Audi speared into the barriers nose first, at unabated speed despite the brakes being fully applied. The damage to the Audi meant a flatbed recovery was needed, and a safety car period that lasted for just over nine minutes, leaving the field to battle over a single lap.

Steve Laidlaw nailed the start to finish the job with Newsham and Hutchison following in tandem. Jaxon, who’d been promoted from sixth to fourth after the accident retained his place to the flag while behind Shepherd mitigated against his shrinking championship lead by passing Will Beech and Finn Leslie to cross the line in fifth.