Oulton 2: Eaves breaks duck

Just as Yvan Muller did in the first race, Eaves made the most of his front row start and simply drove round the outside of poleman Anthony Reid, whose MG suffered from a low-rev misfire. Once ahead the Dynamics Honda driver pulled away.

"This is my favourite track of the year and I just drove my nuts off," said Eaves afterwards. "During the safety car period I said to the team over the radio: 'somebody out there doesn't want me to have an easy win'. After that I just got my head down again, got a good start on the restart and cleared off."

While Eaves and Reid broke away at the start, Rob Collard got ahead of the SEATs in a three-abreast manouvre at the chicane. Once the Vauxhall driver was ahead it was clear he wasn't as fast as Jason Plato and Robert Huff, who then spent eight laps trying to find a way back past.

Plato got the inside at Lodge and slipped ahead along the pit straight. Huff stayed in Plato's tow and went down the inside of Collard into the first corner but the Vauxhall driver would not give up the corner and the pair touched, spearing into the barriers at around 100mph. Both were furious afterwards and marshals were required not only to clear the track, but prevent flying fists.

"Jason [Plato] made a move up the inside of Rob [Collard]," explained Huff afterwards. "I was close enough to Jason to follow him through. And then on the exit of the corner... I mean Rob's just been like it all weekend, he baulked Jason yesterday in qualifying and today he was trying to push him on the grass.

"I got the run up the inside of him, I was faster than him coming out of the corner but he didn't want none of it and just kept turning right and took me off the track and took himself off as well. It's unacceptable really but there you go."

Plato made an excellent restart when the safety car came in and passed Reid, whose misfire once again left him powerless. Once past the SEAT driver gave chase to Eaves but couldn't catch him.

Reid took third but knew he could have won. "It's so disappointing," he said. "We got pole for the race and not being able to convert that into a race win... We've had this misfire which plagued us in the first race and it's carried over to the second. We just didn't have the power.

"I got a great launch on the actual start of the race proper, and I just didn't have the power and Dan started just pulling away before the first corner. And the same thing on the restart."

Matt Neal closed right up on Reid in the closing stages but the bitter rivals from Silverstone behaved themselves this time as the Honda driver failed to find a way through. James Thompson battled up to fifth ahead of Colin Turkington, Tom Chilton and Muller, who was carrying maximum ballast.

Dan Eaves Honda 30m22.550s
Jason Plato SEAT 30m23.779s
Anthony Reid MG 30m25.344s
Matt Neal Honda 30m25.795s
James Thompson Vauxhall 30m27.094s
Colin Turkington MG 30m29.477s
Tom Chilton Honda 30m29.554s
Yvan Muller Vauxhall 30m30.410s
Luke Hines Vauxhall 30m30.649s
Charlie Butler-Henderson Vauxhall 30m31.953s