Race 1: Reid dominates

Reid's team-mate Turkington won the battle to make it WSR MG 1-2 on the road, but was handed a time penalty that dropped him back to fourth in the results after he made contact with Thompson before passing him at the hairpin. Chilton also passed the recovering Vauxhall driver in the aftermath of the incident and is now classified second.

Up front, Reid's performance was further evidence of the recent progress West Surrey Racing has made with its MG ZS, following the engine upgrade introduced at Croft.

"The car was fantastic," he said afterwards. "An MG 1-2, and to do it at my home track, it doesn't get much better than that. Fantastic. I could see that there was hell breaking loose behind me and I used that to create a bit of a gap. This is fantastic for WSR, they've worked hard and they deserve it."

The battle for second was the story of the race though, and it raged almost until the end. Thompson's works Astra, badly damaged in a qualifying accident (click on link below), emerged ahead of a three abreast dice with Chilton's Honda and Turkington after the first couple of laps. But with his car still fragile, the Yorkshireman quickly found that the two cars behind him were faster.

Chilton tried several times to get past the Vauxhall, but on lap eight he slipped up and Turkington passed him into Duffus Dip. Now the MG driver began to apply his own pressure on Thompson. Increasingly aware of Chilton behind him, Turkington got too close to Thompson on lap 13 and hit the Astra under braking for the hairpin. Thompson lost momentum and the MG was through. Chilton was also by just a couple of corners later.

Turkington's penalty means that he will start fourth on the grid for the second race, but he will still carry the success ballast he would have picked up had he been classified second. Thompson's promotion to third means that he now has a one-point lead in the championship over Muller.

Once Thompson had dropped to fourth he fell back into the hands of team-mate Yvan Muller, but the Frenchman ran out of time to pass him. Dan Eaves was sixth in his Honda. Shaun Watson-Smith was seventh ahead of the standard squabble for the 10th place reverse grid pole slot which was won by Jason Plato. Rob Collard was eighth and Matt Neal ninth.