Soon Plato was on the back of the Honda Civic, the two renowned sparring partners getting ready for another tussle after their thrilling exchange in the second race.
However, while that proved clean, this battle was proving less so and when Plato bumped into the back of Neal on lap ten into Campbell, the outgoing champion attempted to regain the spot by crossing over the grass, but not doing quite enough to keep Plato behind. Neal retaliated soon after though by pushing Plato through Club chicane, prompting him to take the short route over the outside of the kerbs.
It proved to be a useful – if cheeky – decision as the rest of the field had a stationary
BMW in their path after Turkington got it wrong on the final corner as he attempted to find his way past Jackson for the lead.
Plato was up into a comfortable fourth place now, side-by-side with Chilton but unable to wrestle the spot off the Vectra in order to give him a shot at getting ahead of Giovanardi.
However, with only two laps remaining, any hopes of Plato doing anything about a now second placed Giovanardi came to a premature end when the race was stopped after Mike Jordan went off heavily coming onto the pit straight. Forcing the ambulance onto the circuit, while Jordan was fine enough to be walking, but the heavy head-on shunt with the barriers was enough to prompt an early end to the race and therefore the season.
Despite some rather confused moments as the teams wondered if the race would restart, the appearance of the chequered flag was enough to launch riotous celebrations from the VX Racing team, who regain the BTCC title after missing out to Team Halfords for the last two seasons.
A popular winner of the title, it proves the Italian's eighth European touring car title, albeit the first in Britain and the first
not in an Alfa Romeo for 15 years.
Adding to his Italian and European titles, Giovanardi joins the likes of Gabriele Tarquini, Frank Biela and Laurent Aiello as adding the British title to their extensive touring car repertoire.
