RAWDON'S Sam Tordoff claimed a victory on his 'local' circuit of Croft as his West Surrey Racing team notched an historic hat-trick in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship last weekend.

Team-mates Andy Priaulx and Rob Collard also notched victories, and they set the tone in race one when Priaulx, pole man Tordoff and Collard secured a 1-2-3 – the first squad to gain a clean sweep for six years.

Tordoff, who is now back in the title race in fourth, then notched a lights-to-flag victory in the second race, with Collard and Priaulx leading the way in the final race, Tordoff finishing sixth.

Yorkshireman Tordoff, who has 162 points and is ahead of team-mates Collard (eighth, 127) and Priaulx (ninth, 126), said: “It’s been a fantastic day. A win, a second and a hard-fought sixth on soft tyres is a great set of results, and our position in the championship reflects this.

"It’s been a great home weekend and the crowds have been brilliant. There was pressure on us coming in, but we more than delivered as a team with three wins.

"I envisaged I’d be in the championship challenge, and this weekend has put us right up there.

"We’ll be working hard over the summer break – I’ve got fond memories of Snetterton (the next round on August 8-9) from the last few years, so I’m confident going there.”

With only Gordon Shedden’s Honda preventing the BMW trio from starting Sunday’s opening race in the top three positions, it didn’t take long for Collard to steal an advantage over the Civic Type R to follow his stablemates line astern through Clervaux for the first time.

Tordoff led Priaulx and Collard, with the former looking comfortable out front for much of the early running.

The JCT600 with GardX-backed driver had pulled a gap of more than eight-tenths of a second by the end of lap five as light rain began to fall. The defining moment came shortly after when Tordoff made a slight mistake at the chicane on the now greasy surface, and Priaulx nipped through to head the field.

But the rain eased almost as quickly as it had started and the three drivers settled into position for the remainder of the race. Collard dropped away into the clutches of Shedden’s Honda late on, but he held station to help the team to its first podium clean sweep.

Tordoff bounced back in the second encounter as he dominated proceedings for the 15-lap duration.

There would be no repeat of his race-one error as he blasted the #7 BMW 125i M Sport off the line before pulling out a comfortable gap to the chasing pack.

Collard joined the WSR race-winning party by taking a memorable victory in the final contest, despite initially losing the lead to Shedden.

Tordoff clinched sixth late on after he made an almost carbon-copy move to that of race winner Collard on Shedden, but this time it was Tordoff passing the other works Honda of Matt Neal.

Tordoff benefited most from a brilliant weekend by firing himself into championship contention and is a point ahead of Colin Turkington and six clear of MG Triple Eight Racing’s Andrew Jordan.

Just about the only negative for Team JCT600 with GardX was a 20-point deduction from the Teams' Championship for having changed two engines above the number permitted but they are still fourth on 263 points, behind Team BMR (379), Honda Yuasa Racing (360) and MG Triple Eight Racing (284).