James Thompson got the defence of his Green Flag MSA British Touring Car Championship crown off to the perfect start with victories in both opening rounds at Mondello Park in Ireland today (Easter Monday). Privateer Rob Collard came away with the lead in the Independents Cup, but Michael Bentwood and Jim Edwards will go to Brands Hatch in two weeks tying on points for supremacy in the Production class. Meanwhile, reigning champions Vauxhall and their VX Racing squad head both the manufacturers and teams points tables.

Thompson could count himself fortunate to win both races, which were thrown into confusion by heavy rain shortly after the start – the first resulting in a rush of non-mandatory pit stops for wet weather tyres – and resulted in numerous retirements and four safety car periods throughout the afternoon.

Although they leave Mondello without a victory, Honda and MG both showed they are title contenders in 2003. Civic Type-R drivers Matt Neal, Alan Morrison and Tom Chilton and the ZSs of Anthony Reid and Warren Hughes – their team-mate Colin Turkington failed to start both races – proved scintillatingly quick, but fortune was not on their side.

Thompson said: “This is absolutely perfect. I couldn’t have asked for more, but the results don’t tell the real story. Honda and MG gave us a big fright this weekend. Both were fast and it could have been very different. As I’ve said before, this is going to be a very difficult championship to win.”

In the first race, Thompson spun his Vauxhall Astra Coupe off the track and, at one stage, lay only 10th. But clever pit stop strategy during the race’s three safety car periods enabled him to make up enough ground to emerge in the lead in the closing stages to lead team-mate Yvan Muller home in a Vauxhall 1-2.

Muller had started from pole position, having set the fastest ever BTCC lap around Mondello in qualifying. The Frenchman led the race but a crash between his own team-mate Paul O’Neill and Petronas Syntium Proton’s Phil Bennett that blocked the pit lane forced him to delay his pit stop and he fell to second behind Thompson.

In the second race, Thompson, starting from pole position as a result of winning the first race, led all the way until the penultimate lap when Muller, having made up ground after losing places in the early stages, slipped by on a soaking track.

The Frenchman’s lead lasted only a lap, however, as, just two corners from home, his car’s engine stuttered and Thompson was able to breeze by for his second win of the day. O’Neill’s fourth place in race two, behind Honda Racing’s impressive teenager Tom Chilton, helped give VX Racing a massive lead in the teams championship.

Muller found it difficult to accept having victory snatched from him by a mechanical problem on his car. He said: “I can’t be satisfied with two seconds after I was fastest in qualifying and led the first race. The crash in the pits ruined my first race strategy and to lose in the second, when I was fast enough to win … I can’t accept this.”

Morrison added third and fifth place finishes to head to Brands Hatch third in the championship standings. His two performances – judged to be the most spirited drive of the day – earned him the Will Hoy Memorial Trophy awarded in honour of the former champion who died last year.

Team-mate Neal and MG’s Reid, who had both fought for race victories, left pointless, however. Each crashed off the circuit in the first race, Neal, much to his annoyance, after contact with privateer Gavin Pyper in his GA Motorsports Vauxhall Astra Coupe. In the second, Neal and Reid’s cars pulled off the circuit with mechanical problems, Neal’s with a wheel missing shortly after a pit stop.

Pyper had been challenging for Independents Cup honours in the opening round when he clashed with Neal, this incident allowing Collard to cruise to victory, although he had to pick his way through the spray after his Astra Coupe’s windscreen wipers broke! Pyper made up for it by muscling his way past Collard in the closing laps to take victory in the second. Collard’s superior finishing record, though, means he leads the Independents standings and, by surviving the high rates of attrition in both races, is also sixth in the overall championship points table.

David Leslie, meanwhile, gave his Proton team much to cheer about by getting as high as third in the second race before dropping back to ninth at the end. Team Halfords’ new Peugeot 307s also made their much-awaited debut in the hands of Dan Eaves and Carl Breeze, both picking up valuable points in the second race with eighth and 10th place finishes.

In the Production class, fourth and first place finishes for Edenbridge Racing’s Bentwood and third and second, plus a bonus fastest lap point for Team Varta’s Edwards, has put them level at the top of their points table.

Varta’s Tom Boardman had been on course for class victory in the first race but retired in the pit lane with a wheel missing from his Peugeot 307. GA’s Chris Ryan thus came through to overtake Edwards with a lap to go to steal the win in his Alfa Romeo. Edwards was also overtaken on the final lap by Barwell Motorsport’s Alan Blencowe, although he was able to just hold back Bentwood to keep third. Barwell’s Luke Hines, who had taken the class pole position in his Civic Type-R, spun out of the race.

In the second, GA’s Paul Wallace led briefly before his Alfa stopped on circuit. Edwards then took over the lead but as track conditions deteriorated his Honda Accord proved no match for Bentwood’s BMW which slipped past for a dominant win. Ryan and Blencowe both failed to finish, while Boardman and Hines were unable to take the start.