Matt Neal secured this third British Touring Car Championship title in the final race of the season at Silverstone, as Team Aon’s Tom Chilton took the race victory.
Chilton, who had started from the front row in second, led the entire race and withstood pressure throughout from Jason Plato, who saw his championship hopes extinguished in the second race.
Click here for the full Round 30 Results.
Completing the podium was Special Tuning Racing’s Tom Boardman who, having started the race in fourth, passed Alex MacDowall for the final podium position on the second lap.
Andrew Jordan took a solid fifth place, with a comfortable six second gap to the next car behind. That car was the Audi A4 driven by Rob Austin – who steadily caught and passed the title-fighting works Honda’s in the mid part of the race. Austin then proceeded to perform a robust passing manoeuvure on Tom Onslow-Cole for the position, with the Team Aon driver forced to settle for seventh.
Having started the race in eighth, Neal knew that all he had to do to secure the title was finish ahead, or within a 3-4 places of Gordon Shedden, to win the title. As it transpires Neal’s eighth-placed finish was enough for him to take his third title, with Shedden unable to finish higher than tenth having been overtaken at the final corner by Dynojet’s Frank Wrathall.
Ollie Jackson once again just missed out on the points with 11th, whilst Paul O’Neill had a strong drive from 29th to take 12th and crucial independent points.
Already crowned Independents champion, James Nash had a difficult race. The Triple Eight driver had been battling with Austin and Mat Jackson for the final points position when he was handed a drive-through penalty, which dropped him to 17th.
James Thompson took his only point of the season for taking the fastest lap of the race, having finished down in 18th position. Mat Jackson finished as the last of the Airwaves cars down in 21st after he was forced to make an extra pitstop when his bonnet came loouse.