Nerveless Neal returns in winning style

Spins, crashes, punctures and breakdowns abounded as the 2002 Green Flag British Touring Car Championship got under way in dramatic fashion yesterday, Matt Neal making the best possible return to the competition with a win in round one.

As rivals dropped out, Neal, who split with the Peugeot team after one meeting in 2001 and missed the rest of the season, kept his cool to take a fine victory in the semi-works Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra and backed that up with a fourth place in round two.

A rash of punctures delayed or stopped five cars in the first race, including title favourite Yvan Muller and MG factory driver Warren Hughes, who had looked secure in third place. That left Dan Eaves in the privateer Team Halfords Peugeot a happy second, while 17-year-old Tom Chilton was third on his series debut in a Barwell Motorsport Astra.

Chilton is now the youngest ever BTCC racer – he doesn't even hold a road licence yet – and he benefited after Paul O'Neil – brother of Spice Girl Mel C – crashed his Egg Astra out of third on the final corner. Chilton had earlier upset the returning 1992 champion Tim Harvey when he nudged Harvey's Team Halfords Peugeot off track and out of the race.

James Thompson won the second race, the feature event, to turn round a disastrous weekend which had so far yielded him just a handful of laps and two blown engines in his works Vauxhall. Muller took second place, ahead of MG's Anthony Reid, who'd been in the thick of a great dust-up with Neal, Thompson, Hughes and Harvey.