Matt Neal took the win in the fourth race of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season at Donington Park after starting the race from pole in the turbo powered Honda Racing Honda Civic.

However it wasn’t all plain sailing for the 44 year old after losing the lead from the start. Wheel spin off the line gave Nash the opportunity to take the lead which was duely taken.

Nash didn’t stay in the lead for long however with Neal retaking the lead into Redgate with a well-timed move on the inside.

That wasn’t the end for Nash who once again slipped down the order in the Triple Eight Vauxhall Vectra with both Jordan and Shedden overtaking the 25-year old from Milton Keynes.

Nash said to BTCC Crazy, “The start was good. Not normally used to leading a race and controlling the race is quite a big thing to do and I just pushed my tyres a bit to hard early on so I just tried to cool them down letting Neal, Jordan and Shedden through in the process.

I thought I could get them back later on but I used too much off the tyres up and struggled at the end.”

Nash will start race two from 4th on the grid and went on to say, “We’re at the right end of the grid for the second race so I can’t complain.”

Jordan and Shedden would hold onto their positions to come home in the 2nd and 3rd respectively and take their positon on the podium. Chilton ran a relatively trouble free race coming home in 5th in the Team Aon Ford Focus ahead of the older shape Focus of Mat Jackson.

Collard will be pleased with his race after keeping the SEAT of Boardman at bay for much of the race to finish in 7th and was the highest placed S2000 driver with O’Neill and MacDowall rounding out the top 10.

Race one was certainly a race to forget for already double race winner in 2011, Jason Plato, after a front left puncture with just 4 laps to go put an end to his race. Plato would resume but finish down the order in 19th and 2 laps down.

Contact between Newsham and George on the start/finish straight resulted in the two retirements along with the Audi of Rob Austin which failed to make it onto the grid.

UPDATE: Gordon Shedden was later excluded from the race for a technical infringement. Shedden was adjudged to have exceeded the boost pressure on the turbo therefore stripping him of his 3rd place finishing and promoting Nash to 3rd. Shedden will start the second race of the day from the back of the grid.

For full results click here.

Photo Credit: Pete Mainey (www.psmmotorsportimages.co.uk)

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.