Knockhill saw three different winners in the BTCC, with Matt Neal stealing a late victory and Gordon Shedden enjoying a home win
Matt Neal took victory in a thrilling third race at the British Touring Car Championship meeting at Knockhill, putting himself back into championship contention.
Neal, in his Honda Civic Type R, made a penultimate-lap pass on Adam Morgan to snatch victory. Morgan had established a comfortable lead on two occasions in his Ciceley Racing Mercedes A-Class, but saw one wiped out by a safety car and the other by his own mistake.
Starting a reverse-grid finale on pole for the third time this season, Morgan led stable-mate Aiden Moffat away at the start and proceeded to space between himself and the Scottish youngster in the opening laps.
A dislodged tyre stack at the chicane required a one-lap safety car so it could be replaced, and on the restart Morgan pulled away from Moffat again - this time to the tune of more than three seconds as the Scot came under pressure from Neal.
Moffat made a mistake at the chicane on lap eight and ran slightly into the gravel, releasing Neal - though Morgan actually extended his lead slightly in the first couple of laps that Neal ran second.
Soon enough Neal started to take chunks out of the advantage, and had it down to 1.3 seconds when Morgan hit the tyre stack at the chicane with two laps left.
Debris covered the A-Class's radiator grill and although Morgan managed to dislodge it at the hairpin, Neal was on his tail - and dived inside a lap later when Morgan left a gap open at the same corner.
Morgan threw everything at the Civic Type-R on the final lap but could not get back ahead, and so had to settle for second.
Earlier, Neal’s teammate Gordon Shedden had claimed victory at his home track in the second race of the day, while Rob Collard emerged triumphant in the first.
Shedden’s win was the most comfortable of the day, taking victory by three seconds in the end. His nearest challenger for a large part of the race was Mat Jackson, who stayed behind Shedden for 25 laps. He was passed by race one winner Rob Collard in the final third of the race, but Jackson managed to hold on to third.
In the first race, Mat Jackson took an early lead while Collard started fourth on the grid. Collard nipped ahead of Tordoff in the opening lap and was harrying Priaulx for second.
A brief safety-car period bunched up the leaders but when it ended a lap later, Jackson pushed his lead back up above a second - though the rear-wheel drive BMWs came back at him once their soft tyres were back up to temperature.
Jackson defended gamely, keeping Priaulx at bay without too much difficulty, but the pressure turned into contact when Priaulx tried to get around the outside of the Ford exiting the hairpin at three-quarters' distance.
Priaulx went onto the grass briefly, allowing Collard into second - and a lap later he cut underneath Jackson exiting the same corner and took the lead into Duffus Dip.
He retained his advantage to the flag, finishing 1.7s clear of Jackson who expertly fought off Priaulx to mark Motorbase's second meeting of the season with a fine second.
Despite not featuring on the podium at the weekend, Jason Plato did enough to retain his position at the top of the championship with 239 points, with Gordon Shedden and Colin Turkington close behind on 230 and 220 points respectively.
Source: Autocar RSS Feed http://bit.ly/1MH3Mad
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