Brands 1: Neal pushes to victory

The start was a chaotic affair. Neal got the jump at the start and slid down Brands' infamously sloping startline to shove poleman James Thompson (Vauxhall) into the pit wall. That allowed the second row of Yvan Muller and Paul O'Neill (both Vauxhalls) to get in on the act and they went into Paddock four abreast, coming out in the order Neal, Muller, Warren Hughes (up from row three in his MG), Thompson and O'Neill.

Neal, the lightest of the frontrunners after his Mondello disappointments, got the hammer down and pulled out a convincing lead as Hughes hounded Muller for second. O'Neill found a way past team-mate Thompson on lap eight on the exit of Paddock, and the series leader dropped to sixth behind leading privateer Rob Collard on lap 14.

Neal almost lost the victory in the pits when his left front wheel jammed, dropping him to fourth. O'Neill stopped early and reaped the benefit of some fast laps, so Muller exited the pits just as O'Neill drew alongside through Paddock. They rounded Druids side-by-side too, but O'Neill barged his way past at Graham Hill Bend to take the lead.

Hughes was the last of the leaders to stop and had Muller right alongside him, much in the fashion of the earlier Muller/O'Neill tussle. Yvan kept the place this time, but a big lunge from Warren at Paddock a few laps later sent him into the gravel, while Hughes was then hoodwinked by Neal, who leapt from fourth to second in the blink of an eye.

Neal closed on O'Neill in the latter stages, but Paul looked to have held on. Neal lunged from a long way back at the final corner and punted O'Neill into a half spin, while Hughes went off the track after also hitting O'Neill and ended up in the gravel. Neal took the flag by 1.2secs ahead of Muller and O'Neill. Anthony Reid took fourth, ahead of Thompson.

In the Production Class, Luke Hines (Honda) had a great early tussle with Michael Bentwood's BMW, but Bentwood got the better of it in the middle stages of the race and won by a comfortable margin.


1 Matt Neal, Honda Civic, 35 laps
2 Yvan Muller, Vauxhall Astra, +1.271s
3 Paul O'Neill, Vauxhall Astra, +1.618s
4 Anthony Reid, MG ZS, +4.704s
5 James Thompson, Vauxhall Astra, +7.504s
6 Colin Turkington, MG ZS, +11.222s


1 Michael Bentwood, BMW 320, 34 laps