Muller and Neal triumph for Vauxhall
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Your support makes all the difference.Yvan Muller and Matt Neal claimed victories in their Vauxhall Astras as the British Touring Car Championship came to the Mondello Park circuit outside Dublin.
Neal took full advantage of problems in the works Vauxhall camp to win an incident-packed sprint race in his Egg Sport Vauxhall. Neal worked his way up from fifth in the early running to pass David Leslie's Proton and Gareth Howell's Team Atomic Kitten MG.
Second-placed James Thompson ran into gearbox problems and decided to let Neal past. Then, when Muller's Astra engine cut out when he was leading by a long way, the win was Neal's.
After two safety car periods and several smack-ups and bodywork grinds, Leslie came in third, behind Thompson, while Howell's engine lost power in the closing stages and dropped him out of the rankings.
Muller's win changed his luck. The Frenchman was the quickest guy in the place over the weekend, but a qualifying problem put him down to 12th on the grid. A bizarre run of events, from food poisoning to pre-start pit-stops from cars at the front of the grid changing their tyres as the rain fell, meant Muller crossed the start line in eighth place but he soon hit the front – and held on to win.
Thompson started on pole, but changed his mind on tyre choice before the start. That dropped him down the field, but as the track dried he timed his pit-stop and another change of tyres to slicks perfectly and regained second place.
Neal took third from MG's Anthony Reid on the penultimate corner after a close battle turned controversial as Neal edged the MG on to the grass.
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