Matt Neal has retained his lead at the top of this year's British Touring Car Championship, after taking victory in an action-packed third race at Donington Park yesterday.
However, it was Team BMR who won two of the three rounds over the weekend, to usurp factory-backed Honda Yuasa Racing in the Teams Championship standings.
BTCC veteran Jason Plato drew first blood by taking the chequered flag in race one and earning his first victory for Team BMR at the wheel of his Volkswagen CC.
The double champion started third on the grid, but managed to jump the factory Honda Civic Type-R of Gordon Shedden when the lights went green and then took the lead from teammate and defending champion Colin Turkington by the end of lap one.
From there, Plato opened up a 1.5sec gap which he held for most of the race and until the finish line, with Shedden snatching second place from Turkington a lap later - where the pair remained for the rest of the race in a tight battle.
Elsewhere, Andrew Jordan finished a distant fourth for MG, while Sam Tordoff held on for fifth in his WSR BMW 125i M Sport. Championship leader Matt Neal got as high as fifth position, before his soft-compound Dunlop tyres succumbed to the 66kg of extra ballast, eventually dropping him to 16th.
Thanks to his fastest lap in race one, Gordon Shedden started the second race in pole position, but was beaten off the line by Team BMR man Colin Turkington in the other Volkswagen CC.
The two swapped positions again a lap later at Redgate after their cars exchanged paintwork, and contact was made again at Craner Curves which saw Shedden collide with the MG of Andrew Jordan and fall back to 14th.
After Team BMR owner and driver Warren Scott and the Ford of Alex Martin had a coming together, the safety car was deployed. Turkington expertly judged the restart and opened up a gap to the MG of Jordan, who was left to try and hold off Adam Morgan in his Mercedes-Benz A Class and the Honda Civic Type-R of Matt Neal.
Morgan and Neal eventually got either side of Jordan on the back straight during the final few laps, whose soft compound tyres were fading rapidly. After taking to the kerb, Neal ran wide and tapped Morgan - sending the Mercedes wide, while the Honda driver kept his foot in and slipped past Jordan to finish in second place.
On the penultimate lap, Morgan tapped Jordan and put the MG briefly sideways before he recovered to finish fourth. Race one winner Jason Plato finished fifth after being hampered with 75kg of ballast for his successful efforts and just held off the WSR BMW of Rob Collard, who finished sixth by three tenths of a second.
The third and final race of the weekend turned out to be a cracker, with Matt Neal taking his second win of the season in a dramatic affair.
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