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Neal triumphs in Brands race three

Matt Neal won the third British Touring Car Championship encounter at Brands Hatch this afternoon

The top seven from race two were reversed for the event, handing Neal pole. The Honda Racing driver then converted that into the lead at the start, chased by Eurotech Racing's Andrew Jordan and the Tech-Speed Chevrolet Cruze of Paul O'Neill.

Fast-starting Mat Jackson (Motorbase Performance Ford Focus) and Triple 8 Engineering's James Nash touched coming off the line, allowing Jackson to slot into fourth and sending Nash onto the grass.

Jackson overcame O'Neill on the run to Druids a few laps later and inherited third when Jordan, who had been shadowing Neal, suffered his second left-front puncture of the day. Jackson closed on Neal as the race drew to a close, but the Honda held on to win by less than 0.2 seconds.

O'Neill took a lonely third, ahead of Neal's team-mate Gordon Shedden. His Civic spent much of the race attacking reigning champion Jason Plato, winner of the first two races today. He eventually lunged Plato at Graham Hill Bend, and the RML Chevrolet driver gave Shedden room, but ran wide, allowing the Honda to power past on the run to Surtees.

Plato then held off a recovering Nash for fifth, while Rob Collard (WSR) put in an impressive performance to score the best BMW result of the weekend in seventh.

Tom Chilton's Arena Motorsport Ford Focus and Plato's team-mate Alex MacDowall were next, ahead of newcomer Tony Gilham. That result means the former VW Racing Cup and Porsche Carrera Cup driver scored three top-10s on his first weekend in the BTCC with Triple 8.

Despite Neal's win, Plato's tally of two victories and a fifth means he leaves the Kent venue with the title lead. The next BTCC round is at Donington Park on April 16-17.

Results - 24 laps:

Pos  Driver           Team/Car                Time/Gap
 1.  Matt Neal        Honda                 19m50.198s
 2.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford          + 0.189s
 3.  Paul O'Neill     Tech-Speed Chevrolet    + 3.813s
 4.  Gordon Shedden   Honda                   + 6.602s
 5.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet               + 7.150s
 6.  James Nash       Triple 8 Vauxhall       + 7.323s
 7.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW                 + 7.928s
 8.  Tom Chilton      Arena Ford              + 8.307s
 9.  Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet               + 8.910s
10.  Tony Gilham      Triple 8 Vauxhall      + 11.764s
11.  Tom Boardman     Special Tuning SEAT    + 13.663s
12.  Dave Newsham     Geoff Steel BMW        + 14.026s
13.  Tom Onslow-Cole  AmD Volkswagen         + 25.806s
14.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Vauxhall      + 25.910s
15.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW                + 26.427s
16.  Andy Neate       Arena Ford             + 26.996s
17.  John George      Tech-Speed Chevrolet   + 33.353s
18.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford         + 33.589s
19.  Chris James      ES Chevrolet             + 1 lap
20.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Vauxhall        + 1 lap
21.  Tony Hughes      Speedworks Toyota        + 1 lap

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