Italian Fabrizio Giovanardi moved to within two points of the lead in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship after winning the final race at the Croft circuit near Darlington.

The VX Racing Vauxhall driver closed the gap on series leader Jason Plato as the SEAT driver failed to win any of the three races at the North Yorkshire circuit yesterday.

Northern Ireland's Colin Turkington won race one in the Team RAC BMW after leading from the front, having started second on the grid.

Turkington also set the fastest lap in what was a first win for BMW in a BTCC race for almost 11 years.

Team Halfords Honda finished second and third as pole position man Gordon Shedden edged out the second Civic of team-mate Matt Neal.

Reigning champion Neal had been in second but collided with Turkington's team-mate Tom Onslow-Cole while lapping him and dropped back to third.

SEAT's Darren Turner won an incident-packed second race after overtaking team-mate Plato in the final corner.

Turner secured his first BTCC race win ahead of Plato who increased his lead over Giovanardi who was sixth. The Italian had been in contention earlier in the race when he collided with leader Turkington's BMW.

Shedden had also led he race before his Honda Civic was retired with a steering problem, with Mike Jordan eventually finishing third in the Team Eurotech Honda.

Giovanardi took the win in race three ahead of Onslow-Cole and Mat Jackson's BMW.

Shedden was next in the Honda from Turner's SEAT, Neal in the Honda and Giovanardi's team-mate Tom Chilton. Plato, Turkington and Jordan round out the top ten.

Giovanardi led all but the opening lap to take a fifth win of the season for the Vauxhall Vectra.

Plato could finish only eighth and, as a result, his points lead which was 16 at the start of the day had been reduced to two.

Onslow-Cole had led the first lap before Giovanardi got by and Jackson, another rising star of the series, came in third.