The formidable sight of three works Hondas lining up on the front two rows of the grid at Croft today was followed up by a magnificent victory for Matt Neal in his Civic Type R at the 2.1-mile, North Yorkshire circuit.

In sweltering conditions and over 25 laps, it was Neal who beat pole-sitter James Thompson to the first corner but the safety car came out soon after as current championship leader Yvan Muller was shunted off the track by Paul O’Neill. Honda Racing’s Alan Morrison also made a great start to the race and had tucked in behind his team mate but the safety car stayed out for several more laps as marshals tried to soak up oil on the track with cement dust.

As the safety car returned to the pits, Neal made his break at the front, putting in some fast laps, while Morrison came under increasing pressure by James Thompson. Neal was first to pit for Honda at the same time as Thompson, leaving Morrison out in front for a lap before he made a fantastic stop to rejoin the race just in front of Thompson, who’d actually stalled momentarily while exiting his pit stop. However, Morrison’s luck ran out one lap later, when he lost a front wheel and had to retire from the race.

The second half of the race saw Matt Neal comfortably hold an advantage of over three seconds in front of James Thompson but general debris on the circuit brought out the safety car yet again, handing Thompson an opportunity to close right up to Neal, with just a few laps remaining. Aware that he had failed to finish both races at Croft last year, Neal drove superbly to control the final four laps and take his third victory of the season for Honda Racing.

Tom Chilton, who hadn’t made the best start from fourth on the grid, picked up a drive through penalty for a pit stop infringement. Despite dropping down to tenth after the enforced penalty, he fought back and finished the race in seventh place.

Matt Neal: “I’m absolutely over the moon. It’s a shame it wasn’t another Honda Racing one, two because I really thought we were on for that. The car has been right on the money all weekend. Everything just went really well for me – I had a good start and got in front of James Thompson straight away and I was able to keep my position from there.”

Alan Morrison: “Obviously I’m really disappointed. I thought that we were definitely on for another Honda Racing one, two but that didn’t happen and now I just have to focus on the second race.”

Tom Chilton: “It was a very frustrating race for me. I was really pleased with my qualifying position but in the race lots of things just seemed to go wrong. I got a bad start and was down to seventh by the first corner and it was just frustrating after that really. And I got a drive through penalty for driving through Vauxhall’s bay, which cost me about eight or nine seconds. “