Neal moves into championship lead with race one win

Matt Neal converted pole position to victory in the opening BTCC race of the day at Donington, despite initially losing out to James Nash at the start. The Honda driver lost out to a fast starting Nash, but repassed the Vectra on lap two, from where he held on to take a controlled win ahead of Andrew Jordan and move into the lead of the championship, three points ahead of Jason Plato.

Behind Jordan the second Honda Civic of Gordon Shedden completed the podium with initial race leader James Nash coming home fourth.

Nash had split the two front row starting Honda’s off the grid as pole sitter Neal suffered from wheelspin on his getaway, with the Triple Eight driver beating Shedden away before diving past Neal at the first corner.

Further down the field John George was tipped off and into a glancing blow with the infield barriers after contact with Dave Newham, who also retired on the spot, while contact at Redgate left Tony GIlham facing the wrong way and other drivers taking to the grass in avoidance.

At the front Nash led from the brace of Hondas, but into Redgate second time round Neal out broke the Vectra, re-taking the lead he would hold until the end of the race.

Jordan then forced his way past Shedden at Macleans on the next tour and immediately moved up onto Nash’s rear bumper as Neal broke the Donington lap record with a 1:10.902.

Lap five saw Nash shuffled down to fourth as first Jordan passed him into Redgate and then Shedden outdragged him across the line come the end of the lap.

For the rest of the race it was as you were at the front, with Neal holding onto a one second lead for the majority of the race until easing off near the race end and allowing Jordan to close to within three hundredths at the flag.

Neal’s victory took extra importance as he moved into the lead at the top of the standings ahead of Plato as the Chevrolet driver suffered a left front puncture on lap eleven after running very wide at the Old Hairpin.

Behind Nash in fourth came Tom Chilton, while Mat Jackson enjoyed a largely lonely race to sixth after passing Rob Collard early on. The BMW driver came home seventh after an entertaining battle with Tom Boardman, Paul O’Neill and Alex MacDowall who rounded out their points.

Frank Wrathall was the top NGTC runner in 17th, while Rob Austin’s BTCC debut didn’t make it as far as the lights after the Audi A4 driver pulled off on the green flag lap.