While Jelley made the best of his reversed grid pole position to insert his West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport into the lead from Aiden Moffat’s front-row starting Laser Tools Racing Infiniti Q50, it all kicked off in the battle for third.
Dan Lloyd had made up a place from Josh Cook to put his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N into fourth position at Old Hall, and then attempted to round the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla of Ricky Collard at the Island hairpin.
They raced side by side over Hill Top with Lloyd very slightly ahead, but Collard was hemmed in with the grass to his right when they collided. Lloyd speared into the barriers and then bounced back onto the track.
As his Excelr8 Hyundai team-mate Tom Ingram veered off to the right onto the grass in avoidance, that left Colin Turkington suddenly confronted with the Hyundai, and the WSR BMW smashed into its side.
Michael Crees was caught up the wreckage, ending his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra’s race, while Ash Sutton also took to the grass in his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus.
There were no serious injuries, although Lloyd and Turkington were still in the medical centre after the race. After a safety-car interlude, the race restarted with 13 laps remaining.
Jelley, who has had hybrid problems during the day, wasted no time in extending an advantage over Moffat.
This extended as far as 2.024 seconds with six laps remaining, although Moffat had trimmed it back to 1.541s by the finish.
Moffat had a queue comprising Collard, Josh Cook, Gordon Shedden, Rory Butcher and Dan Cammish behind him for a while, but eventually escaped from their clutches.
Collard hung on to finish third from the Honda Civic Type Rs of Cook (BTC Racing) and Shedden (Team Dynamics) plus his Speedworks Toyota team-mate Butcher, but a five-second time penalty for a false start dropped him to seventh in the results.
That promoted Cook to third, Shedden to fourth, Butcher to fifth and Dan Cammish (Motorbase Ford) to sixth.
Cammish faded late in the race and came under attack from the charging Ciceley Motorsport BMW of Adam Morgan, who was recovering from his first-lap exit and was the fastest on track late in the race.
Cammish just about held on, and somehow Collard’s corrected time split him from Morgan.
Completing the top 10 were Ash Hand (PMR Vauxhall) and Aron Taylor-Smith (Team Hard Cupra).
Sutton and Ingram were both forced to pit under the safety car to remove grass from their radiators from their first-lap excursions, and found themselves in company with Jake Hill, whose WSR BMW had gone off at the hairpin on the first lap.
Hill finished as the best of the trio in 13th, with Sutton 16th and Ingram 17th, meaning that Cook has re-established his championship lead.
