ADAM Morgan celebrated with a ‘couple of beers’ after winning his first ever British Touring Car Championship race at Brands Hatch.

The Blackburn ace took top spot in the second race at the famous GP circuit in the final round of the season last weekend.

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For the 25-year-old it was just reward for the hard work of his family-run Ciceley Racing team this season, driving a WIX Racing Mercedes-Benz A Class.

It was also the first time a Mercedes car had won a BTCC race, capping a fine weekend for the German outfit, who celebrated winning the Formula 1 constructors championship with another one-two in Russia.

But for the Morgan clan all eyes were on Kent as they ended their 2014 season on the ultimate high.

“I was chuffed, to finish the season with a win is mega,” said Morgan. “I knew the car had the pace to win, it was absolutely on rails, it was unbelievable to drive all weekend. To win and a have a two-time champion behind me was pretty special.”

It was something of a bittersweet moment for Morgan though. He was handed victory when Jason Plato, who crossed the line first, was given a 20-second time penalty for an incident with Colin Turkington earlier in the race.

Morgan had driven a superb race to battle through to take the lead, but he lost it to Plato three laps from the end.

“It was a little bit mixed feelings at the time,” he said.

“I was in the lead but had a bit of a slide at Dingle Dell and lost the rear, you learn from it.

“At first I was just told that Jason was going to be given a 10-place grid penalty but then they changed that to a 20-second time penalty, which meant I found out just before race three started that I had the win.

“I had to get back to concentrating pretty quickly because it was torrential rain for race three, it came down pretty hard and the race was shortened by a couple of laps, visibility was horrific.”

This has been Morgan’s first year in the Mercedes-Benz car, and as the sole driver for the team he has had to lead the development on the car, which has improved as 2014 has gone on.

Morgan, who finished the season 10th in the championship, hopes that the work spent developing the car this season will mean they can start well next year.

“The car is dialled in now, it’s the quickest it’s been running all year,” he said. “It gives us a lot of a confidence that we can be challenging pretty early on next year.

“We’ve been to every track now and have got a lot of data for every track, so next year we can hit the ground running. We have worked unbelievably hard this year.

“People think we just turn up at the track and drive home.

“After the three races you have to pack up, then I drive the truck home, often we don’t get back until three in the morning and then Monday morning you are back at the unit unloading the truck, so this is our reward for that hard work.”

That wasn’t the case on Sunday though, with most of the teams staying down in Kent to let their hair down at the end of the 10-round, 30-race championship, which allowed Morgan and his team to toast their first victory.

“We had a couple of beers on Sunday night,” he said.

“Everybody was a bit rough on Monday and I had a bit of a headache, but it was a great way to finish the season.”