Sprint gives Aiello fifth win from seven

Only his team-mate, David Leslie, could stay with the flying Frenchman, who clocked up his fifth win in the past seven races.

Aiello has now extended his lead in the championship to 34 points.

Away from the start the first five drivers stayed in grid order: Aiello and Leslie, followed by the Ford Mondeo duo of Alain Menu and Anthony Reid and the Renault Laguna of Jason Plato.

Plato retired on lap five with a blown engine - the incident also ended the race of Paula Cook, who slid off on the dropped oil in her Independent Honda Accord.

That brought out the safety car for three laps, closing the field up.

It also elevated Vincent Radermecker to fifth; the Volvo S40 driver had come off best in a clash with his team-mate, reigning champion Rickard Rydell, on the opening lap.

In a processional race, the only real challenge came over the opening two or three laps, when Leslie ran right behind Aiello.

When he dropped a few car lengths back, Menu started to threaten, but then fell away.

The Nissan pair had an untroubled end to the race; Menu fell back after losing top gear, allowing Reid to close up, but he decided not to challenge his team-mate, since neither of them were coming under any real pressure from Radermecker.

In the Independents category, Matt Neal took yet another win, his sixth from nine rounds. With the exit of Cook, that left only Mark Blair to bring up the rear of the field in his Vauxhall Vectra.

BTCC Sprint Race Result from Oulton Park

N.B. Race was scheduled for 20 laps - 3 laps were completed behind the
safety car.