Honda made its return to the highly competitive world of the British Touring Car Championship on Easter Monday at Brands Hatch circuit in Kent with its two-car Honda Racing team. Fielding a pair of stunning Honda Civic Type-Rs for drivers Andy Priaulx and Alan Morrison, the team faced a series of power steering problems on its debut but still demonstrated the enormous potential of the Civic Type-R by scoring points in both races.

Qualifying: Priaulx qualified an encouraging seventh for round one with Morrison in 10th place, while the duo qualified 12th and 11th respectively for round two. Pole position for both races went to last year's championship runner-up, Yvan Muller (Vauxhall Astra).

Sprint Race: After a strong start that saw both Hondas in the thick of the action, Morrison and Priaulx suffered from a recurrence of the power steering problems dropping them down the leader-board and out of contention for a podium finish. Both cars were forced to make unscheduled pit-stops to change the electronic control boxes. Morrison finally retired on lap 10 while Priaulx battled back to finish eighth in the BTC Touring class and thus score points for Honda Racing. The opening race was won by Matt Neal (Vauxhall Astra) with Dan Eaves (Peugeot 406) in second place and Tom Chilton (Vauxhall Astra) in third.

Feature Race: Priaulx raced into the points again in the longer 'Feature Race' capturing a strong fifth place finish despite loosing time when switching power steering systems during the mandatory mid-race pit-stop. The Guernsey driver was confident that without the recurring power steering problems, he would have been in a podium position. Team-mate Morrison had his race ruined by a punctured left front tyre on lap 12. The Ulster-born driver was running as high as third before the puncture and, despite re-joining the race, he finally retired when the power steering failed. After two safety car interventions, James Thompson (Vauxhall Astra) won the second race with Muller and Anthony Reid (MG) in second and third positions.

Alan Morrison : "It has not been easy for us this weekend. We have had very little track time with the new car and we feared there could be a few teething troubles. However, I really feel we have made some improvements and learnt a great deal. We have a three week gap now before the next race and I am convinced we will be looking much stronger at Oulton Park."

Andy Priaulx : "I am really pleased with the progress we have made here this weekend. Between the two races we made some improvements to the set-up and in the second race the car was handling really well. We had problems with our power steering all weekend and we will address these immediately. I am sure we will be in contention for podium finishes at the next race."