Priaulx breaks his duck on wet track

Andy Priaulx grabbed his first British Touring Car Championship win in dreadful conditions in the feature race here yesterday. The Honda works driver kept the dominant Vauxhall Astras off the top step of the podium for only the second time this season with a great run from pole position.

A half-spin with just two laps to run stopped hearts in the Honda pit, but Priaulx held on to beat Vauxhall Motorsport's Yvan Muller and James Thompson. Matt Neal was fourth, ahead of his Egg Sport team-mate Paul O'Neill, both overhauling the sixth-placed Anthony Reid.

With the track drenched, officials had decided to start the event but run the first five laps behind the safety car in the hope that 28 cars would move enough water to allow racing to go ahead safely. It worked.

Neal had earlier won a typically hectic Knockhill sprint race. He started third on the grid and immediately took second place at the green lights before being bundled back down to fifth place.

Fortunately, he was the only top runner to guess the weather conditions right. All the drivers had fitted wet-pattern tyres after rain began to fall just before the start, but Neal had earlier also decided to make suspension changes. His Astra quickly picked off the four cars ahead of him and went on to a fine win. Reid was second for MG, ahead of Neal's title rivals Thompson and Muller.

Polewinner Priaulx led the early laps, but had no answer to Neal's pace and was then knocked down the order, initially by Reid. He finished down in seventh place and was not at all happy with Reid's tactics, which the Scot described simply as: "hard but fair."

* Jason Priestley was seriously injured yesterday in a crash during practice for an Infiniti Pro Series race at Kentucky Speedway, Sparta. The 32-year-old actor-driver, most famous for Beverley Hills 90210, crashed his Dallara/Infinit/Firestone coming out of the second turn on the one-and-a-half-mile track. He was taken to the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, where he was listed in critical condition with serious head injuries.