The third and final race of the day was the first to see the new draw to determine how many positions – between seven and ten – will be reversed from the result of race two, to form the grid. Race two winner, James Thompson, drew the number seven card, putting Tom Chilton on pole for the second time in a day.

It was Chilton that led the pack away from the line, but a strong start from Jason Plato saw him leapfrog Rob Collard to move into second. It only took a handful of laps on the short Indy circuit for Plato to put Chilton under considerable pressure. The pair, who were involved in a war of words ahead of the meeting, now had a chance to settle their differences on the track.

Experience paid for Plato, as the SEAT driver went to the inside of Chilton going along onto the start-finish straight, before edging ahead at Paddock. Chilton also lost out to Rob Collard who did well to follow Plato through the gap.

Reigning champion Matt Neal was the next to put Tom Chilton under pressure, although Neal himself was forced to defend from Colin Turkington. Chilton’s race just got worse as he first lost third to Neal and then fourth to Turkington.

By passing Chilton, Neal would unwittingly seal his own fate later in the race, as next up for the Indy king was the Team RAC MG of Rob Collard. With five laps remaining, Neal closed right up on the back of Collard, and slid his Integra through into second at Clark Curve. Collard ran in Neal’s slipstream along the straight, before there was contact between the pair under braking at Paddock.

The clash sent Neal clattering into the tyre barrier on the outside of the dipping bend. Collard was able to continue, while Neal’s Integra was badly damaged. With just a couple of laps left to run, the red flags came out, and the result was declared, with a first win of the season for Jason Plato, with Collard in second and Colin Turkington third.

Not for long however, as Collard was excluded from the result following post-race protests from Team Halfords. There could yet be further changes, as the result is subject to an appeal from Team RAC.

Regardless of the outcome for Collard, it marked Neal’s first DNF in 33 races – a quite remarkable feat. It also meant that SEAT emerged as the big winners from the meeting, leading all three championships.

Racewinner Jason Plato said, “This has been a phenomenal race weekend for the team. It could have been better for me personally had Giovanardi not hit me, but winning the third race was great. We have worked hard over the winter to find a good race pace with the new Leon and now we need to work a bit more on our qualifying set-up. The team has done a fantastic job this weekend and I’m confident that we have a good package to really challenge for the title.”

Rob Collard said, “The incident with Matt (Neal) was very unfortunate. He made a very aggressive move on me heading into Clearways and I know it may look like retaliation but that's not the case. I followed him into Paddock and he just braked too early and unfortunately I made contact. It completely caught me by surprise.”

Matt Neal said, “We could have had a mega points score this weekend from two thirds and a second," he said. "To walk away with not only a non-finish in the third race but a wrecked car makes me very angry. Now we regroup and look to Mondello.”