Giovanardi takes masterful victory

Giovanardi, who made significant progress on the opening lap from eighth on the grid, passed Jason Plato's SEAT for the lead on lap five as the Vauxhall driver got a better exit from Redgate and nosed in front into the Craner curves.

And as light rain fell the Italian kept his cool best of all and won by two seconds to increase his championship lead to 18 points over Plato.

Tom Onslow-Cole finished third, and was lucky not to be t-boned by Gordon Shedden at the Old Hairpin after the former unwittingly forced the Team Halfords Honda driver onto the grass while trying to catch a slide of his own.

Darren Turner and Tom Chilton completed the top five with the latter making contact with Matt Neal on the final lap in an incident that eliminated the two-time champion at Schwantz curve.

Andrew Jordan and Adam Jones were next up, while Chris Stockton, who had only managed one racing lap before this weekend, was a magnificent eighth on what is the BTC team's first weekend with SEAT machines.

Earlier, the race had got underway in bizarre fashion as Andrew Jordan, who finished sixth, seemed to stall, forcing a delayed start. Instead of then doing a second formation lap, the drivers got the green light to being racing immediately, which seemed to cause some confusion among the drivers and caused a big difference in the speed at which many got off the line.

There was then a major collison as the spinning Martyn Bell was avoided by Turner, but collected by both Alan Taylor and Stuart Oliver.

The biggest accident befell Erkut Kizilirmak, who crashed heavily at the Craner Curves but was able to walk away from the wreck of his Arkas Racing Vauxhall Astra.

Pos Driver                 Car                 Gap
 1. Fabrizio Giovanardi    Vauxhall      24:46.915
 2. Jason Plato            SEAT             +2.880
 3. Tom Onslow-Cole        Vauxhall         +7.236
 4. Darren Turner          SEAT            +13.247
 5. Tom Chilton            Honda           +13.413
 6. Andrew Jordan          Honda           +19.670
 7. Adam Jones             SEAT            +22.027
 8. Chris Stockton         SEAT            +29.333
 9. Gordon Shedden         Honda           +34.807
10. Jason Hughes           Honda            +1 Lap
11. Mat Jackson            BMW              +1 Lap
12. Steven Kane            BMW              +1 Lap
13. Colin Turkington       BMW              +1 Lap
14. Harry Vaulkhard        Chevrolet        +1 Lap


Not Classified

    Driver                 Car                Laps
    Matt Neal              Vauxhall        16 laps
    Mike Jordan            Honda           10 laps
    Erkut Kizilirmak       Vauxhall         8 laps
    Martyn Bell            Vauxhall         0 laps
    Michael Doyle          Honda            0 laps
    Stuart Oliver          SEAT             0 laps
    Alan Taylor            Honda            0 laps
    Stephen Jelley         BMW              0 laps


Fastest lap, Giovanardi 1:13.967