Matt Neal became the sixth different winner from the six races contested so far this season.
Sam Tordoff maintained the lead from pole position and was joined by his West Surrey Racing team-mate Jack Goff on lap two as he slipped by Neal at the Esses. While the WSR duo initially scampered off into the sunset both cars had to manage their Dunlop SportMaxx soft tyres for the duration of the contest.
Gordon Shedden’s Honda Civic Type R was busy making a way through to fourth place as he then joined Neal in hounding down the BMWs.
It proved to be a race of two halves as the harder compound runners had the greater performance in the second period of the encounter.
Neal sliced past Goff at the Old Hairpin on lap ten and Shedden followed suit at Redgate on the following lap.
Although Tordoff desperately tried to look after his tyres extremely it became clear he would be helpless to stop the Honda charge. Neal’s Civic Type R took eight tenths of a second out of the the Team JCT600 with GardX BMW on lap 13 and he was through one lap later after making a textbook move at McLeans – one of the triple champion’s favourite hunting grounds.
Shedden produced a similar move on Tordoff, as he done to Tordoff, at Redgate and the Hondas were suddenly holding a comfortable one-two. Both streaked clear to take the chequered flag in unison and the BMWs of Tordoff and Rob Collard followed suit in third and fourth, with the latter also benefitting from the hard tyre.
Similar battles played out up and down the order as the likes of Mat Jackson and Josh Cook made stellar getaways on the soft compound, before spending the second half of the race falling down the order.
MG’s Ashley Sutton stormed through to take fifth ahead of the fading Goff, whilst Aiden Moffat took an impressive seventh, and with it the Independents’ win for Laser Tools Racing.
Rob Austin also showed his hand late to steal eighth in his Toyota Avensis, from Cook and the Pirtek-backed Ford of Andrew Jordan. Martin Depper won a pulsating battle to take 11th from Hunter Abbott by just 0.014s.
