Matt Neal took the first win of the day at Croft in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship with a mistake free race despite being pushed all the way to the line.

The race started on a wet and slippery surface with the majority of the field starting on wet tyres. Starting from pole position, Plato led into the Clervaux but made an error on the exit allowing Neal and Collard to move ahead into 1st and 2nd, dropping the 2010 champion down into 3rd.

On a track which was drying as the race went on it was the drivers on the slick fronts and wet rear tyres that started to come into their own. Mat Jackson, after dropping down the order on the slick front tyres on the wet surface, started to charge through the pack coming from outside the top 10 to finish the race just 0.055s behind the Honda Civic of Matt Neal in a thrilling last lap to the first race.

Speaking after the race Neal said to BTCC Crazy, “The race seemed to last an eternity but it was more relief at the end. I knew that I couldn’t make a single mistake with Rob [Collard] right behind me.”

“If there was to be one more corner then Mat [Jackson] would have had me so it was touch and go. It was a brave call with the tyres but it paid off for us.”

Rob Collard took the third step on the podium after being behind Neal for much of the race but finally succumbed to the pace of the Airwaves Focus of Jackson on the final lap with the wet tyres going off with every lap of the race.

“It’s a fantastic result for the team and that makes it two podiums ont the trot for us in two meetings and we need to concentrate on that and hopefully we can pick up another podium in race two,” said Rob Collard speaking to BTCC Crazy.

“I want it to rain. With the BMW we need it to be bone dry or really wet. When it’s in between like it was then we have no answer to the front wheel-drive cars.”

Plato, after starting on pole, was only good enough for 4th place and Shedden held off the challenge from Andrew Jordan and Tom Chilton to finish in 5th. Meanwhile Nash and O’Neill charged through the pack but they left it too late and ran out of laps on the drying track after the tyres came to them late on.

Tom Boardman took the final point of the race finishing just ahead of Tom Onslow-Cole in his first race for the Team Aon team in 2011.

For a full classification of results click here.

Photo Credit: Jon Hobley

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.