Mat Jackson led home a Chevrolet 1-2-3 – the first in 24 years – in the first of today's three HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship races at Silverstone.
Warwickshire's Jackson lost his pole position advantage at the start but soon re-passed Airwaves BMW driver Robert Collard for the lead - with a great move down the inside at Brooklands corner - and went on to record his third win of the season.
Jackson's Racing Silverline team-mate Jason Plato and RML's James Nash, who set the race’s fastest lap, also then overtook Airwaves BMW driver Collard in one fell swoop at Copse corner to ensure Chevrolet drivers filled the top three places on the podium - the first such achievement since Brands Hatch's final round of 1975.
Series leader Colin Turkington was fourth in his Team RAC BMW, closely followed across the line in fifth by chief title rival Fabrizio Giovanardi’s VXR Vauxhall Vectra, the gap between them going into this afternoon’s second race now at 11 points. Both drivers lost places in the opening laps but, even with the two highest amounts of success ballast in the cars, still found a way back up the order. Giovanardi could count himself lucky to have started the race, though, having spun his car on the final formation lap at Becketts!
Collard ultimately slipped to sixth, just ahead of Team RAC's Stephen Jelley and his own Airwaves team-mate Jonathan Adam - all three fell victim to Giovanardi in the closing laps following the second of two safety car periods.
As a result, Collard now finds his sixth place in the standings under serious threat from jackson who is now just one point behind.
That second safety car period had been required so marshals could 'dress' oil laid by Martin Johnson's retiring Boulevard vauxhall Astra. The first had been needed after veteran Anthony Reid, returning in a third Team RAC BMW, and Tom Onslow-Cole's Team Aon Ford Focus ST collided and crashed out at Brooklands.
Completing the top ten were Paul O'Neill whose sunshine.co.uk Honda Integra eventually found a way past Matt Neal's VXR Vectra for ninth. Tom Chilton was right behind both in 11th in Aon's second Focus - again demonstrating the progress being made with the car. VXR's Andrew Jordan then just held off former F1 star Johnny Herbert - making his BTCC debut in Team Dynamics' Honda Civic - for 12th. Although he was just outside the points, Herbert at least finished the race unlike team-mate David Pinkney who, after one earlier spin, finally fell off for good at Copse.
