Halfords Yuasa Racing celebrated a triumphant return to winning ways in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship after Matt Neal steered the new Honda Civic Type R to a dominant first victory at the Thruxton circuit.

Drivers Matt Neal and Dan Cammish carried a special livery on their cars with a ‘Celebrating 100 Years’ windscreen sun strip and a vintage Yuasa Battery logo on the bonnet. The circular logo appeared on all Yuasa products sold and produced in the UK up until 1992 when it was replaced with the current ‘water tower’ logo familiar to all BTCC fans.

Neal was in impeccable form in qualifying to smash his own lap record around the UK’s fastest circuit and pick up the team’s first BTCC pole position of 2018 before translating it into a dominant lights-to-flag win.

Starting from pole again for race two but hauling a full complement of 75kg success ballast around Thruxton’s high-speed turns, Neal again put in a superb effort to keep many of his substantially lighter rivals at bay and finishing third to pick up another podium. In a hard-fought finale, Neal brought the car home eighth, in so doing accumulating more points than any other driver over the course of the event.

Team-mate Dan Cammish complemented Honda’s joy in race one with a superb run to third position from fourth on the grid. This was his second podium result in what is already proving to be an impressive rookie campaign.

In the overall standings, Neal’s return to the winners’ circle has catapulted him to sixth, which together with Cammish in eighth puts the Honda pair firmly in the title hunt.