Heading into lap two, the two works SEAT men found themselves embroiled in a battle for sixth place with
Jason Plato sweeping ahead of Darren Turner on the oval but at that same moment, a message flashed on the timing screens to say that Plato – as well as Jason Hughes and John George – had been handed a 30 second stop/go penalty for having people working on his car on the grid beyond the allotted time. Lap two also saw
Tom Onslow-Cole retire when he went off at Pif Paf, leaving the Vauxhall man with a long, wet walk back to the paddock.
The conditions were now so bad that standing water was becoming an issue at a number of corners, with Harry Vaulkhard and Michael Doyle both going straight on at Brook – a corner which incidentally had something resembling a brook running across it. Doyle was able to rejoin while Vaulkhard took a trip around the oval, picking up a lap penalty in the process.
On lap four, Jackson made a fine move for third on Jones on the high-speed run round Pif Paf while further down the top ten, Darren Turner suffered a trip across the gravel at Brook and dropped to the lower end of the top ten. Just how tricky conditions were becoming was summed up when Steven Kane suffered a spin exiting the pit lane, although luckily there was no-one coming round the high-speed turn one at the time to collect the Motorbase
BMW.
Two incidents on lap eight however forced race officials to send out the Safety Car after both Turner and John George went off into the gravel. It meant Turkington's lead, which had gradually increased, was wiped out with Chilton behind – although with the lapped MG of Jason Hughes in between – Jackson third, Jones fourth and Shedden and Neal fifth and sixth; the latter from eleventh on the grid.
