Starting from pole position, but carrying maximum ballast due to his race one victory, Matt Neal got a flying start to today’s second race at Croft. Having to defend against the lighter cars of James Thompson and Anthony Reid, Neal had his work cut out for him and had to focus all his energy just on staying out in front. However, Reid passed Thompson and then made contact with Matt Neal’s Civic Type R, forcing the Honda Racing driver to take evasive action. This also allowed Thompson to slip through into second place.

Honda Racing’s Tom Chilton had made a good start from seventh place and had driven superbly up to fifth, before he was passed by championship leader Yvan Muller, who was carrying no ballast due to him crashing out of race one. Chilton’s team mate, Alan Morrison, who had started way back from the eighth row of the grid, had fought his way up to seventh place by the time the pit stop window opened on the tenth lap.

Matt Neal pitted first for Honda Racing and he regained the track in third place ahead of Yvan Muller, who’d had a problem with the air jack in pit lane. The Worcestershire-based driver held off the challenge of Muller for several laps, but was block passed at the chicane. Meanwhile, Tom Chilton had crashed and was forced to make another pit stop, so it was left to Alan Morrison to be the Honda man on a charge. He passed Paul O’Neill to move up to fifth behind Matt Neal. With the much lighter car, Morrison was soon waved past by his team mate, so he could set after the leading trio in the handful of laps that remained.

Although he made his presence felt in the race, unfortunately for Morrison, there just weren’t enough laps remaining for him to close on the leaders, so he was forced to settle for fourth place – no mean feat considering that he had started the race from the eighth row of the grid. Despite his maximum ballast, Matt Neal drove skilfully to finish in fifth place, while Tom Chilton finished in 12th.

Matt Neal: “Overall I’m pleased with the weekend. It’s probably my biggest points haul so far and I think it’s been a good weekend for Honda Racing. We couldn’t replicate the tyre configuration that we used in the first race so we gambled and unfortunately we got it wrong. I had terminal oversteer right from the start and that and the extra weight were just too much.”

Alan Morrison: “I got a good start but the other boys closed in on me really quickly. I’m pleased with a fourth place finish from starting last but to be honest I’m just glad to get this weekend out of the way and move on to the next race.”

Tom Chilton: “I got a much better start than in the first race but I had a few problems again so it was still quite frustrating. I was just hanging in there holding my place and trying not to let Yvan through but he had a lighter car. I had a good pit stop but then I had problems with my rear left tyre caused by wear and it was just not holding up. That was a shame because if it wasn’t for that I could have stayed up there with the others and held on to sixth. The most important thing is that this is the biggest learning year I’ve ever had and I am learning all the time from every race.”