Neal wins Donington opener
Matt Neal scored his second British Touring Car victory of the season at Donington Park this morning
The poleman got too much wheelspin in his Honda Racing Civic at the start and lost the lead to the fast-starting Triple 8 Engineering Vauxhall Vectra of James Nash. But Neal tracked Nash and dived past on the inside into Redgate at the start of lap two to take a lead he was not to lose.
Neal's team-mate Gordon Shedden then moved forward to challenge Nash, but got delayed at the Old Hairpin, allowing Andrew Jordan's Eurotech Racing Vectra to outdrag the Honda on the way to McLeans.
Jordan quickly overcame Nash at Redgate and set off after Neal. He closed in the late stages, but the Honda held on to win by less than 0.4 seconds.
Arena Motorsport's Tom Chilton initially held on to the lead group, but gradually fell back. He nevertheless took a comfortable fifth, behind Shedden and Nash, well clear of the older Ford Focus of Mat Jackson (Motorbase Performance).
Rob Collard took a fine seventh in his WSR BMW, after holding off a determined attack from Tom Boardman's Special Tuning Racing SEAT Leon for much of the race.
A first corner moment, which also delayed several others, meant Eurotech's Jeff Smith had a lot of work to do. He came back to 12th, narrowly missing out on defeating Alex MacDowall's RML-run Chevrolet Cruze.
Jason Plato, championship leader coming into the race, ran sixth for the first half of the race, but ended up point-less after his Cruze suffered a left-front puncture.
Results - 16 laps: Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Matt Neal Honda 19m13.620s 2. Andrew Jordan Eurotech Vauxhall + 0.359s 3. Gordon Shedden Honda + 1.263s 4. James Nash Triple 8 Vauxhall + 2.024s 5. Tom Chilton Arena Ford + 4.532s 6. Mat Jackson Motorbase Ford + 10.943s 7. Rob Collard WSR BMW + 14.658s 8. Tom Boardman Special Tuning SEAT + 15.094s 9. Paul O'Neill Tech-Speed Chevrolet + 18.433s 10. Alex MacDowall Chevrolet + 19.110s 11. Jeff Smith Eurotech Vauxhall + 19.550s 12. Tom Onslow-Cole AmD Volkswagen + 25.084s 13. Nick Foster WSR BMW + 25.562s 14. Liam Griffin Motorbase Ford + 29.907s 15. Andy Neate Arena Ford + 30.569s 16. Tony Gilham Triple 8 Vauxhall + 30.658s 17. Frank Wrathall Dynojet Toyota + 38.660s 18. Chris James ES Chevrolet + 1m02.953s 19. Jason Plato Chevrolet + 2 laps 20. Tony Hughes Speedworks Toyota + 2 laps Retirements: John George Tech-Speed Chevrolet 2 laps Dave Newsham Geoff Steel BMW 0 laps Rob Austin Austin Audi 0 laps
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