Race two at Knockhill was one of the most dramatic of the season. After a year of trying, Vauxhall finally notched up their 100th BTCC victory, as Fabrizio Giovanardi scored his first.

Giovanardi fended off prolonged attacks from both Matt Neal and Darren Turner for almost the entire duration of the 26-lap race. The Italian drove an extremely wide Astra Sport Hatch to hold on all the way to the chequered flag.

At the start of the race, it was Jason Plato who led away from pole position, ahead of Matt Neal and Giovanardi. The VX Racing driver was up to second by the end of the opening lap after moving inside Neal at the Real Radio hairpin and making the inside line count along the straight.

Lap two was an eventful one for Team Halfords’ Gareth Howell, who first of all caught a big sideways moment, and then later in the lap, ended up in the tyre barrier on the outside of the exit from the Real Radio hairpin. He was able to rejoin, albeit a long way down.

The safety car was deployed after three laps when James Kaye and Adam Jones were left with nowhere to go as Colin Turkington slowed suddenly. The Honda Civic Type-R and Lexus IS200 were scattered off the track and took a couple of laps to recover.

At the restart, Plato and Giovanardi broke away at the front, with Giovanardi looking very strong. The VX Racing driver went to the inside at the hairpin and emerged on the inside line to lead out of the straight through SEAT curves.

With Giovanardi leading, the top five were running almost nose to tail, with Rob Collard, Tom Chilton and Jason Plato joining Neal and Giovanardi at the front.

Contact between Collard and Plato at the chicane put Collard out of the race and left Darren Turner and Matt Neal to challenge Giovanardi at the front. And challenge they certainly did.

Over the course of the second half of the race, Giovanardi came under almost constant attack from the SEAT and the Honda. There was contact aplenty as Neal and Turner swapped positions on numerous occasions and took their turns to challenge the Italian.

Tom Chilton and Gavin Smith brought their Astras on to the back of the top three with eight laps remaining. They made sure Neal and Turner had to worry as much about what was happening behind as challenging Giovanardi at the front.

With a couple of laps still to run, it was practically the whole of the top seven running together, that was until a clash between Gordon Shedden and Gavin Smith saw the Halfords Integra spin into the tyre barrier and damage both front and rear ends of the car.

There was further drama still to come, and it came on the final lap. In an incident that started with Darren Turner making one last challenge on Giovanardi’s race lead, Jason Plato, Tom Chilton and Mike Jordan all suffered heavy damage to their cars.

Turner’s SEAT touched the back of Giovanardi’s Astra, before Turner himself was tagged by Matt Neal. Neal was then collected by Jason Plato, which left Chilton and Jordan with nowhere to go but straight into the cars stranded in front of them.

It just left Giovanardi to defend his lead one last time from Darren Turner at the hairpin, but the Italian was not going to allow a repeat of Donington when he was robbed of his first BTCC win at the final corner.

Giovanardi took the win, with Turner crossing the line in second. However the SEAT Sport UK driver’s bad day continued when he was later excluded for failing to carry the correct ballast. That promoted Gavin Smith to second and Dave Pinkney to third. Pinkney was also the top independent finisher. Jason Hughes was fourth, with Matt Neal fifth and Mark Proctor sixth.

Gareth Howell, Martyn Bell and Colin Turkington were the only other finishers.

After the race, Giovanardi said, “I’m really happy for the team, for me and for Vauxhall. When I saw the possibility to win, I was not going to let it go. I was not going to let anybody past. I’m so pleased to get the 100th win.”