Neal Wins Race 2 at Knockhill
Matt Neal avenged his defeat by title rival Yvan Muller earlier today with victory in the second British Touring Car Championship race at Knockhill
The Team Dynamics Honda Integra-R driver passed the Frenchman's Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch on the inside of the right-hander at Clark on lap nine and survived a late-race Safety Car period to triumph by 0.768 seconds.
Muller held onto second place despite severe pressure from the Arena Motorsport Honda Civic Type-R of Tom Chilton.
Chilton had earlier made his way up from fifth on the grid, working past Neal's teammate Dan Eaves, who had much of the filed queued up behind him while grappling with gearbox difficulties before retiring with a damper problem.
The second Astra of Colin Turkington claimed fourth after an eventful race, surviving a late race run off track at Duffus Dip to hold off the SEAT of Luke Hines.
Hines himself came close to losing out to the charging third Integra of Championship returnee Gareth Howell.
Howell had come through from the back of the grid after retiring from race one, but lost ground to Hines after having to lift off to avoid hitting him.
The remains of the top ten were made up of the protagonists from an increasingly frenetic battle for tenth place.
The independent MG ZS of Jason Hughes led Jason Plato's SEAT home for seventh place, but it was another independent runner, Mark Proctor in his ex-Rob Collard Astra Coupe, who took pole for race three after finishing behind the WSR MG of Rob Collard and holding off the bio-ethanol powered Coupe of Fiona Leggate.
CLASSIFIED: Pos Driver Car Time 1. Matt Neal Honda Integra 26:16.364 2. Yvan Muller Vauxhall Astra + 0.768 3. Tom Chilton Honda Civic Type-R + 1.043 4. Colin Turkington Vauxhall Astra + 1.508 5. Luke Hines SEAT Toledo Cupra + 2.182 6. Gareth Howell Honda Integra + 4.511 7. Jason Hughes MG ZS + 20.474 8. Jason Plato SEAT Toledo Cupra + 25.357 9. Rob Collard MG ZS + 25.856 10. Mark Proctor Vauxhall Astra Coupe + 26.438 11. Fiona Leggate Vauxhall Astra Coupe + 26.630 12. James Pickford SEAT Toledo Cupra + 42.982 NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS: Driver Car On Lap Gavin Smith Vauxhall Astra 14 Richard Williams Lexus IS200 14 Ian Curley Lexus IS200 14 Dan Eaves Honda Integra 11 James Kaye Honda Civic Type-R 1
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