Sprint race: Second win for Bennett

Both Bennett's Egg Sport machine and poleman Jason Plato were forced to give way to a charging Yvan Muller - who forced between the two front row Vauxhall Astra Coupes - into Redgate on the opening lap.

But Bennett managed to jink to the right of Muller going down the Craner Curves, and really earned his touring car spurs by diving inside the Frenchman into the Old Hairpin. With Muller 'hung out to dry', he also lost second to Plato.

Then, when Plato was slow out of the Esses, Muller muscled his way back into second ahead of the Englishman into the Melbourne hairpin. But into the following Goddards hairpin, Plato repaid the compliment. Both the works Vauxhalls then doorbanged down the pit straight, and in doing so presented Peugeot driver Dan Eaves with second place.

Eaves was then the victim of the intra-team Vauxhall battle. Plato felt a nudge from behind into the Old Hairpin, and in turn hit the 406 Coupe into a spin which forced Eaves out of the race.

From then on little happened at the front. Bennett, with no success ballast running 60kg lighter than the other Vauxhalls, now had a huge advantage and, although Plato tried hard to whittle down the gap to the race leader (gaining the bonus point for fastest lap as he did so), he overheated his front brakes and concentrated on consolidating second from Muller. After the sprint race, the gap between the two warring Astra men is now 10 points in Plato's favour, with the feature race to follow.

"It was quite a nice little trick," enthused Bennett of his move to take the lead. "I've been watching Ayrton Senna from 1993! For me it's fantastic. I've had my ups and downs this year but now I've won again. I can't think of that many people who have won two touring car races in their first year."

A clash between James Thompson and Steve Soper at the first corner forced Thompson into a spin and to the back of the Touring class field. He recovered up the order to fourth only to pull off with a broken throttle cable - his first retirement of the season and one which leaves the Egg Vauxhall man with an almost insurmountable 42-point deficit to Plato.

After Eaves had fallen off, Soper rose to fourth, but he was forced into the pits with an airbox dislodged by the clash with Thompson, rejoining two laps down.

Anthony Reid therefore took fourth in his MG, despite falling to the back on the first lap after a poor start, which left him wheelspinning away from the line. Team mate Warren Hughes took fifth after an early battle with the Alfa Romeo of Tom Ferrier, while Tim Harvey and Thomas Erdos (who spun at the Esses) completed the non-stopping Touring class finishers.

Simon Graves led the Production class race throughout in his Barwell Motorsport Honda Accord, while Roger Moen fought through from seventh on the grid to second in an excellent first couple of laps in his HTML Peugeot.

Gavin Pyper looked set for third until his GA Janspeed Alfa Romeo got stuck in fourth gear, dropping to sixth over the last couple of laps. That gave the final podium spot to James Kaye, both the Barwell Honda man and Moen making up ground on points leader Simon Harrison in the table. This was a disastrous race for Harrison, who retired with suspension failure on his HTML Peugeot. He now holds a slender eight-point advantage over Moen and is nine ahead of Kaye going into the feature race.

Phil Bennett (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 16 laps in 27m23.206s
Jason Plato (Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 27m26.820s
Yvan Muller (Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 27m29.492s
Anthony Reid (MG ZS) 27m39.089s
Warren Hughes (MG ZS) 27m50.049s
Tom Ferrier (JSM Alfa Romeo 147) 27m53.042s
Tim Harvey (JSM Alfa Romeo 147) 28m05.005s
Thomas Erdos (TMSR Lexus IS200) 28m07.624s
Steve Soper (Peugeot 406 Coupe) 13 laps
Plato 1m43.019s


Simon Graves (Barwell Honda Accord) 15 laps in 27m17.117s
Roger Moen (HTML Peugeot 306) 27m19.263s
James Kaye (Barwell Honda Accord) 27m22.514s
Gareth Howell (GR Ford Focus) 27m32.808s
Paul O'Neill (Techspeed Peugeot 306) 27m34.382s
Gavin Pyper (GA Janspeed Alfa Romeo 156) 27m38.038s
Graves 1m48.052s