WORCESTERSHIRE driver Matt Neal went through all the joy and all the strife of touring car racing in rounds seven, eight and nine of the British Touring Car Championship at Silverstone.

A brilliant win in the first race of the day, could so easily have been followed by another in the third race, but instead the 37-year-old from Wychbold was knocked out of contention while battling for the lead with only a handful of laps left to run.

Neal was understandably overjoyed after winning round seven in his Honda Civic Type R, prepared by Pershore-based Team Dynamics, on a track that still had plenty of tricky damp patches on it following overnight rain.

"I'm absolutely over the moon," he said. "And it was a good clean race too."

In race two Neal, whose first race win had only earned him 10th place on the grid and a maximum load of success ballast under the new reverse grid rules, battled through to eighth.

In race three he worked his way skilfully up the field from eighth and by the 15th of 16 laps was challenging Anthony Reid for the lead. That's when it all went wrong.

"We had it in the bag and would have been the first car to bag two wins on one weekend this year. I'm desperately upset for the whole team and don't think it was at all fair the way I was driven off the road," he explained after the pair had clashed on the exit of Becketts.

His car was damaged in the incident and he dropped down the field to finish back in eighth after a further bruising incident on the last corner.

Neal remains fourth in the championship ahead of the next three rounds at Oulton Park on May 23.