Feature race: Thommo wins crashfest

Jason Plato, Yvan Muller and Phil Bennett all took turns in the lead, but a series of clashes, with Plato at the centre, changed the course of the race and Thompson roared through to lead. He was under pressure again when the race was stopped early because Dan Eaves' heavily crashed Peugeot was in a dangerous position at Coram.

Thompson looked in the early laps to be right out of the equation. After a firework display in the rain, all started off on wet pattern tyres and Thompson's set-up wasn't working. His Egg Astra was losing a second a lap to the other three battling Vauxhalls.

Plato held the early lead, but Muller was quicker behind and Bennett, the fastest of the lot in third. On lap 11 Bennett made his first move, nipping past Muller at the Esses.

Half a lap later he scythed past Plato at Riches, but then it all went wrong. Plato felt that Bennett had: "Just bitten off too much. He was already spinning and there was nothing I could do."

The upshot was that Bennett's Astra spun across the front of Plato's, which pushed it up the track a fair way. "The last thing I was going to do was lift off and risk spinning myself," said Plato.

Bennett spun off, narrowly missed one of the floodlight gantries and carried on battered and bruised to the pits with a puncture. He wasn't impressed.

"I knew I had the speed," said the Egg man, "the set-up was great. Unfortunately, he decided to have me off. It's silly really. He's in the title fight and I'm not. He didn't need to do it."

Any disciplinary measures will not be considered until next weekend at Croft... All this left Plato in the lead with Muller on his tail and challenging. A run in between the two at the Esses was followed by another more damaging one after all had stopped to swap to slicks at the pit stops later.

Plato was happy the clashes were all part of a close race in tricky conditions, but Muller was not so sure. "There are two types of contact," said the Frenchman. "Contact which results in losing a place and contact which doesn't."

Muller was unwilling to accuse his team mate directly of going too far, but he did say. "If you want to push someone off, it's easy. I can do it as well, but I didn't yet."

In the confusion, Thompson, who had stopped early to swap to slicks and then risked all to run a really strong middle section to the race, moved his dirty, but otherwise notably pristine Astra into the lead.

Still Muller wasn't finished. He was closing right in on Plato again when an attempt to pass a BTCP car round the outside at Coram went wrong and he narrowly missed hitting the already crashed Eaves Peugeot. "I think I have a few more grey hairs than this morning, though," he said.

At the same time Plato was also closing in on Thompson, but at 75% distance (when full points can be awarded), the red flags were displayed and the race stopped, with Thompson leading Plato and Muller.

Steve Soper had a lonely run to fourth in his Peugeot, with Thomas Erdos - treating today's races as a test session after engine problems in qualifying - fifth in the Lexus and Bennett recovering to sixth. Eaves had been shaping up to relieve Erdos of fifth place, when he spun at Coram and slammed heavily into the barriers. Dan was OK, but the 406 a mess.

In BTCP Honda man Simon Graves emerged from an early battle with Gavin Pyper's Alfa, Gareth Howell's Ford and Simon Harrison's Peugeot to lead much of the way.

Howell's GR Motorsport Focus though was quicker later in the racer as the track dried and he moved through to win. A few laps more might have made a difference though as the Focus started to smoke badly in the closing stages.

Graves took second from Mat Jackson in his GR Focus. Pyper dropped out with electrical failure and Harrison was fourth to re-take the championship lead from James Kaye, whose Honda retired with gearbox problems.


1 James Thompson (Vauxhall) 37m17.912s
2 Jason Plato (Vauxhall) 37m19.029s
3 Yvan Muller (Vauxhall) 37m28.351s
4 Steve Soper (Peugeot) 38m15.112s
5 Thomas Erdos (Lexus) 38m22.181s
6 Phil Bennett (Vauxhall) 38m31.503s
7 Gareth Howell (Ford P) 26 laps
8 Simon Graves (Honda P) 26 laps
9 Mat Jackson Ford P) 26 laps
10 Simon Harrison (Peugeot P) 26 laps

1 Jason Plato 207pts; 2 Yvan Muller 203; 3 James Thompson 189; 4 Phil Bennett 111; 5 Steve Soper 75; 6 Dan Eaves 53.

1 Simon Harrison 147pts; 2 James Kaye 139; 3 Roger Moen 115; 4 Mat Jackson 103; 5 Gareth Howell 84; 6 Gavin Pyper 67.