Matt Neal made it two out of two for Honda with victory in the second of today’s three Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship races at Thruxton.

Neal tailed team-mate Gordon Shedden for the first five laps before moving past in a brave move at the high-speed Church corner. From there he drew clear for Honda’s second win of the day following Shedden’s victory this morning. It was also Neal’s third win of the season so far and has moved him 17 points clear at the top of the championship.

Up to equal second now thanks to finishing runner-up in race two in his Pirtek Vauxhall Vectra is Andrew Jordan – the youngster having also found a way past Shedden as they exited the chicane.

Shedden took third but it later transpired that one of his Civic’s air jacks had worked loose on the opening lap and spent the rest of the race scraping on the track surface, severely affecting his car’s behaviour.

Neal said: “I was starting to hurt my tyres behind Gordon and could see Andrew behind me was starting to get a bit racy so I made my move. Two out of two for Honda is just great at such a demanding track.”

Jordan added: “I’ll take second in the championship any day… for now! I saw Gordon run wide entering the chicane so made sure I got through cleanly so I could pass him on the exit. That’s our fifth consecutive podium so we’re on a good run at the moment.”

And commented Shedden: “That was quite a hairy race. The behaviour of the car was really thrown out by the jack falling down so to still get a third and more big points is a relief.”

Fourth, right behind Shedden at the line, was Tom Chilton’s Team Aon Ford Focus. Mat Jackson’s Airwaves Focus followed in fifth but only after he’d robustly kept back James Nash’s 888 Racing with Collins Contractors Vectra on the sprint to the line. Nash took sixth and is now tied for second in the standings with Jordan.

Silverline Chevrolet duo Alex MacDowall and Jason Plato followed in seventh and eighth – MacDowall, who set the race's fastest lap, was earlier involved in a controversial scrape with Robert Collard, which resulted in the latter’s WSR BMW spinning off the track at the chicane. Plato, meanwhile, had driven through the field from the back row of the grid after retirement in the first race.

Tom Boardman’s Special Tuning SEAT Leon just fended off Nash’s team-mate Tony Gilham as they completed the top ten ahead of the fast-closing Paul O’Neill’s GoMobileUK.com with tech-speed Chevrolet.

Airwaves’ Liam Griffin rounded out the finishers in 17th after a high-speed spin at the chicane in which his Focus clattered into the barriers. Chris James’ ES Racing Chevrolet Lacetti was the only retirement, the car stopping in the pit lane with a damaged front end.

Tom Onslow-Cole’s AmD Milltek VW Golf, Frank Wrathall’s Dynojet Toyota Avensis and Rob Austin’s RAR Audi A4 were all non-starters, their cars suffering a variety of mechanical gremlins.

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