Starting from pole position, Team Halfords driver Gareth Howell was beaten to the first corner by fellow front-row sitter, Colin Turkington, in the Team RAC MG ZS.

There was a spate of early retirements in the second race of the day. Earliest of them all was Darren Turner, whose SEAT developed a clutch problem on the green flag lap. First racing retirement was Tom Chilton when he was tagged from behind by the SEAT of James Thompson. It was enough to spear the Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch off into the gravel at Becketts.

At the front, Gareth Howell challenged Turkington as they approached the line for the first time. As Turkington defended, Matt Neal was able to take to the inside line and lead through the first corner. Turkington held second to start with, but was quickly forced to retire.

“I got a heavy knock from behind”, said Turkington. “I don’t know who it was but it’s done a lot of damage. I just lost the engine. We’ll have to see what we can do for the next race.”

Turkington’s main rival for second in the championship is SEAT Sport UK’s Jason Plato, who was one of the next group of drivers to suffer an early end to the race.

As they exited the Complex on lap two, a combination of Plato suffering a driveshaft failure and Mike Jordan running wide onto the grass caused the cars to collide, collecting James Thompson’s SEAT in the process.

As Jordan bumped back onto the track, he caught the back of Plato, which in turn hit Darren Turner’s car. Jordan ended up slamming sideways into the concrete wall on the outside of the straight, causing heavy damage to his John Guest sponsored Integra.

The safety car was deployed, but as the BTCC medical crew worked to extract Jordan safely, it was clear it was going to take some time and the red flags came out. Mike Jordan was later airlifted to Coventry Hospital.

The remaining cars lined up back on the grid in the order they were running previously, and the race restarted over 14 laps. Matt Neal led away from the line, with Gavin Smith starting quickly to move up to second. The Astra was not there for long though, after being tagged by Gordon Shedden. At almost the same moment, Gareth Howell slid sideways in his Integra, but was able to recover, albeit dropping to sixth position.

Rob Collard was making quick progress after the restart, climbing from the back of the grid up to seventh within a couple of laps. Also running strongly was Motorbase Performance driver Tom Ferrier on his return to the BTCC, in fifth position, ahead of fellow returnee Paul O’Neill. O’Neill and Ferrier both lost a couple of places as Collard and Howell continued their progress through the pack.

At the front, it was practically four for the lead, with Neal defending from Shedden, who showed no signs of obeying any team orders, as well as the Vauxhalls of Giovanardi and Smith. Smith dropped back slightly, but Giovanardi kept Shedden and Neal honest right through to the chequered flag.

Neal was able to hold on at the front to embellish his championship title with an eighth win of the season, ahead of Gordon Shedden for a Team Halfords 1-2. It was two Astras in third and fourth, with Giovanardi ahead of Smith. Collard finished fifth, ahead of Howell. Tom Ferrier scored an impressive seventh place in the Cupra Toledo, while Paul O’Neill scored the best finish of the year for Tech-Speed, coming home in eighth. Jason Hughes and Darren Turner, who joined the race late, completed the top ten.