Matt Neal wins the Diamond Double 60 mile BTCC race at Snetterton
Matt Neal has won the special length 60 mile BTCC race at the Snetterton circuit, jumping ahead of pole-sitter Jack Goff’s Eurotech Honda during a short rain shower to take the lead and win the landmark event for the Team Dynamics Honda team.
Goff got off the line well and led into Riches in his Honda Civic FK2, with Neal in tow while Tom Ingram launched from fourth to third in the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis.
There was plenty of action in the slippery conditions in the early stages, with a few scrapes and incidents throughout the field, while it was a tough start for Race 2 winner Ashley Sutton, who was handed a 30-second stop and go penalty in his BMR Subaru as his wheels weren’t fitted at the warning signal and fell to the back of the pack.
The race was suspended behind the safety car on lap four when Tom Oliphant, who was having his best weekend of the season with two top-ten finishes in races one and two, spun around and was collected by Brett Smith’s Eurotech Honda, with both unable to continue.
The race restarted on lap five, with Goff quickly building up a brief lead, until light rain began to fall at Riches and Wilson, with Neal quickly closing up on the rival Honda, and diving past for the lead at Wilson to take the lead.
The rain soon passed and Neal then found himself defending against both Goff and Speedworks Tom Ingram for the remainder of the race, as the three drivers broke away from the chasing pack.
Andrew Jordan finished fourth in his West Surrey Racing BMW, despite some contact at the mid-point of the race from Motorbase’s Tom Chilton, who’d go on to finish in fifth behind him.
Colin Turkington had an eventful race, sporting damage early on with his BMW 125i M Sport’s front splitter falling apart. An attempt to pass Chris Smiley’s BTC Norlin Honda for sixth on lap 17 didn’t work out, with the Vauxhall of Senna Proctor sneaking through instead, but a lap later Proctor collided with Goff, with Proctor falling back while Smiley was out with damage, with Turkington promoted to sixth where he’d finish the race.
Josh Cook scored key championship points with seventh in his Power Maxed Vauxhall, with the Hondas of Matt Simpson and Dan Lloyd eighth and ninth, and the Vauxhall of Procter recovering to tenth, passing Ollie Jackson’s Audi and Bobby Thompson’s Team HARD Volkswagen at the line in a three-car photo-finish.
Ingram’s third place with the double points that go with it hand him the lead of the championship by six points over Colin Turkington, while Matt Neal leaps back to third in the standings, 16 points behind.
The next round of the British Touring Car Championship takes place in two weeks’ time at the Rockingham Speedway, the final time the BTCC will visit the Leicestershire circuit.
