Eaves Wins as Neal Closes on Title

While Eaves converted pole position into the lead over fellow front-row starter Gavin Smith's Vauxhall, Team Halfords' attention was firmly on teammate Matt Neal, who settled into fourth place behind title rival Yvan Muller. Behind them the third Halfords Integra of Gareth Howell was riding shotgun for Neal, protecting him from the charging SEAT Toledo of Jason Plato.

Muller was in no position to be attacking for the top two places, and had his hands full with holding off the challenge of Neal. While the pair battled, first Plato and then Howell joined the queue, but the Frenchman held firm.

With Neal's priority being taking a race finish, he wasn't willing to make a risky move on Muller, but his comfort zone was removed on lap 10 when Plato got past Howell for fifth at Druids. Two laps later, Neal's run out of Clearways was compromised by Muller's immaculate defending, allowing Plato to execute an inch-perfect pass on Neal on the inside of Paddock Hill Bend. In their wake, Rob Collard's MG ZS found itself in the Paddock gravel after contact with Howell, who he had passed into Surtees the lap before, with an attempted late move up the inside.

With the safety car briefly deployed to clear up Collard, Eaves executed a superb restart to re-establish himself in the lead over Smith. However, with Muller now right behind him, the Vauxhall driver was forced to let his team leader by on the outside of Clearways. The resulting loss of momentum was costly for Smith who, while before the safety car was guaranteed a superb second place, found himself shuffled back behind Plato, Neal and Howell.

Colin Turkington claimed seventh place after a troubled race, holding off the Synchro Motorsport Honda Civic Type-R of James Kaye and the SEAT of James Pickford, who was forced to start from the pit-lane with a clutch problem.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Driver            Car                          Time
 1.  Dan Eaves         Honda Integra                24:35.507
 2.  Yvan Muller       Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch   +   1.089
 3.  Jason Plato       SEAT Toledo Cupra            +   1.430
 4.  Matt Neal         Honda Integra                +   1.895
 5.  Gareth Howell     Honda Integra                +   2.121
 6.  Gavin Smith       Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch   +   3.680
 7.  Colin Turkington  Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch   +   4.043
 8.  James Kaye        Honda Civic Type-R           +   5.066
 9.  James Pickford    SEAT Toledo Cupra            +   5.266
10.  Jason Hughes      MG ZS                        +   8.788
11.  Richard Williams  Lexus IS200                  +   9.326
12.  Andy Neate        Vauxhall Astra Coupe         +  16.147
13.  Fiona Leggate     Vauxhall Astra Coupe         +  16.405
14.  Ian Curley        Lexus IS200                  +  18.054

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Driver            Make                         On Lap
     Luke Hines        SEAT Toledo Cupra              14
     Rob Collard       MG ZS                          11
     Mark Proctor      Vauxhall Astra Coupe           11

Fastest Lap: Dan Eaves, 1:33.178 on lap 2