While all that was going on, the front-runners were continuing to squabble, and by the end of the first lap, Turkington had gone from fighting for the lead to fighting to keep the
BMW on the straight and narrow as both Tom Chilton and
Jason Plato moved ahead of him into podium positions, with Turkington fourth, Darren Turner fifth and Mike Jordan sixth. Gareth Howell,
Tom Onslow-Cole,
Matt Neal and Dave Pinkney rounded out the top ten although the latter was forced to take a drive through penalty for being outside his grid slot.
On the next two laps, Turkington would continue to go the wrong way down the order, as he lost fourth to Turner on lap two and then saw Jordan sweep past into fifth on lap three. Lap three also saw the SEATs swap position, with Turner ahead of Plato into third and quickly going about taking the challenge to Chilton for second.
Plato was also going the wrong way at this point, and on lap four he dropped to fifth as Jordan steamed past in the Eurotech Honda Integra, while further down the order, Matt Allison was making moves up the grid as he took ninth from Onslow-Cole.
Out front, Turner was closing on Chilton, with the two dicing for position before Turner finally made a move stick on lap ten to go into second, with Chilton showing the first signs of tyre problems that would ultimately end his podium charge. By this point, Giovanardi held a comfortable lead from Turner and Chilton, with Jordan, Plato and Turkington completing the top six a three way battle between Neal, Allison and Howell following them on track.
On lap eleven, Chilton ran wide at Campbell which gave Jordan the chance to go third and the 49-year-old closed onto the rear of Turner and moved into second on lap 13. The dicing between the two had allowed Plato to close in, while Turkington was also now in contention in fifth Chilton having now slipped down to sixth.
