Phil Bennett made a stylish return to the series, after sitting out the Oulton Park meeting through suspension, converting his sprint race pole position in to a long awaited first BTCC victory. The Egg Sport driver led from start to finish to take advantage of carrying 60kgs less ballast than his fellow Astra Coupe drivers. In the Production class, it was again the pole-sitter who took victory, with Norwegian HTML driver Roger Moen winning ahead of team-mate Simon Harrison.

As the lights went to green for the start of the race for the Touring class cars, Phil Bennett took up the inside line heading in to the first corner and held off the attack of the three other Astras behind him. The order did change amongst them however, with both Plato and Muller passing Thompson to take up second and third positions respectively. Steve Soper slotted in to fifth position ahead of Anthony Reid in the first of the MGs in their first race.

As usual, the Production class runners set off after a slight time delay. It was Simon Graves who took the lead of the race ahead of Roger Moen. Paul O'Neill, who started from second on the grid, struggled to get away from the line, and later retired with what emerged to be an engine mapping problem. Mat Jackson was third in the class, with Tom Boardman fourth. It wasn't long, however, before Moen re-passed Graves at Maggots to take the lead of the race. Jackson also passed Graves before spinning at Abbey on lap 5. Simon Harrison made rapid progress through the field, having started the race at the back of the grid, and soon took up fifth position. The order at that stage was Moen, Graves, Boardman, Pyper, Harrison. There were battles developing throughout the class, with Boardman and Pyper swapping positions several times before Pyper dropped off the pace, allowing Harrison to make up another position. Gareth Howell and Rob Collard were another pair who had their own private race at one point.

Meanwhile, in the Touring class, Bennett continued to lead, although Muller passed Plato to take second position, not long in to the race. Bennett opened up a comfortable gap between himself and the battle going on behind. Anthony Reid continued to drive a solid race in sixth position, despite having to work his way back up through the field after contact with the Lexus of Tommy Erdos. His team-mate Warren Hughes did not have such a good race though, after contact with Mark Blair left him embedded in the gravel at Priory. Phil Bennett continued at the front, and despite the nerves getting to him at one point when he ran off the track, he held on to his lead ahead of Muller and Plato to take the chequered flag.

It also remained unchanged at the front of the Production class, with Moen making steady progress, although he also had a nervous moment on the penultimate lap, but like Bennett, he was able to recover. Behind him, both Tom Boardman and Simon Harrison passed Simon Graves, before battling between themselves. The eventual victor there was Simon Harrison, who took second position, however Boardman hung on to third for his first podium finish of the year, and the first Peugeot 1-2-3 of the season.

We had a fuel problem which started back here at Silverstone in June. But now it's fixed I can get on and race!"

I feel I've been robbed this weekend. It's very irritating. In free practice yesterday we had a brand new engine from Peugeot and we had a problem with it after 6 laps so we had to change engine. The guys couldn't do it on time so I couldn't do a qualifying lap which is I started way back on the grid."

More to follow.