Rydell finishes with a flourish

The Volvo S40 driver paid tribute to his team, saying, 'It's very good for myself, Volvo and TWR to win the last two races, the last two for the team.

'The car was very good in both wet and dry conditions, and it meant I could push through the whole race.'

Rydell finishes the championship in third after today's victories; the man in second, David Leslie, followed him home in his Nissan Primera. Anthony Reid finished third in a Ford Mondeo.

For Laurent Aiello, his first race as 1999 champion lasted just one corner.

He made a slow getaway from pole in his Nissan Primera, but did enough to lead into Copse - but there, he lost the back end and the car pirouetted into the gravel.

That left Rydell in the lead, with Leslie second and the Renault Laguna of Jason Plato third - but Plato had a nightmare race.

He got past Leslie with a physical move into Abbey, but then it all went wrong.

First, he stalled on his pit-stop, and then got a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

He rejoined but then Alain Menu, recovering from a spin in his Mondeo, simply drove into the side of him. He limped on for another few laps but was finally forced to retire.

With Plato gone, the top three had a relatively quiet run to the flag. The field was closed up when the safety car went out for two laps to allow marshals to clean up the debris from the collision between Menu and Plato, but not even that caused them any problems.

Behind them, there was a fine scrap over the last handful of laps, resolved only on the final lap when Vincent Radermecker got his Volvo past the Vauxhall Vectra of Yvan Muller for fourth.

Matt Neal was also involved in the scrap, the Independent runner recovering from a drive-through penalty for a jump-start. He finished sixth in his Nissan Primera, just ahead of the Renault Laguna of Will Hoy.

BTCC Feature Race result