Alex MacDowall had his best weekend of 2011 so far in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Snetterton.

The weekend began dramatically when a flash-fire broke out in the engine bay of his Chevrolet Cruze, while he was stationary in the pits at the midway point of qualifying on Saturday. This ended his running for the day and in the minutes remaining he was demoted from the top of the timesheets to third by good laps from Jason Plato and Gordon Shedden.

As the first race got underway, MacDowall made a great start to move past Shedden on the run down to Riches, the first corner.  Luckily avoiding Matt Neal’s spinning Honda Civic by the narrowest of margins as the field exited the turn, Alex managed to hold on to second place behind pole-sitter Plato as they threaded their way through into the infield. Soaking up immense pressure from the pursuing turbo-powered Honda of Shedden, from mid-distance Alex was able to edge clear to secure his second podium of 201 and give Chevrolet their first 1-2 finish of the season.

Of the race, MacDowall said: “I knew Gordon (Shedden) was quick on the straights so I had to defend a couple of times but around the corners I was so much quicker than him and into the braking zones I was so comfortable I didn’t really have to defend. Towards the end it was quite an easy race, I just backed off which was a really nice position to be in!

“When Matt (Neal) spun I was about an inch away from T-boning him – that was really close. I dived to the left and, luckily, there was no-one trying to get past me on that side so we were fortunate but then everything went well. It’s great to be back on the podium.”

MacDowall followed up his podium finish with fourth place in the second race and a fifth position finish in the final race, the third time this season that he has finished in the points in all three races of the day.

The 26 points he accumulated at Snetterton have moved him up from ninth to seventh position in the championship standings.

Next on the calendar is a visit north of the border to MacDowall’s ancestral home of Scotland for the seventh race meeting of the season at Knockhill in Fife on 3rd/4th September. The MacDowall family originates from Ayrshire so the Silverline Chevrolet racer will be aiming for some strong results at the undulating track.

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

Tom Surgay is the Porsche Carrera Cup GB correspondant for 2011. Tom's currently studying English Language with Journalism at Huddersfield University. You can contact him at tom@btcccrazy.co.uk or on twitter @tsurgay.