TWO podiums and some solid points finishes saw Vauxhall's works team, Greatworth-based VX Racing, leave Brands Hatch on Sunday leading the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Manufacturers Championship.

Racing the brand new Vauxhall Vectra, VX were cock-a-hoop at being such a strong position after driver Tom Chilton finished third in the day's second race and teammate Fabrizio Giovanardi went one better in round three.

Oxford's Jason Plato was top performer of the day with victories in races one and two, with reigning champion Matt Neal taking race three.

Chilton's best result came after a spectacular move on the first lap of race two.

The 22-year-old braved an oil slick at Druids Hairpin to go around the outside of Tom Onslow-Cole and Mike Jordan and put himself fourth, before moving up to third at the chequered flag.

Giovanardi made hard work of race three when he was passed at the start by Neal, series newcomer Adam Jones, and Colin Turkington - leaving him in fourth place after starting from pole.

Fired up by the situation, the Italian multiple touring car champion turned up the pressure on the cars in front and finished the day in second after making Neal earn his win.

Overall, Vauxhall declared its first outing under the new S2000 rules a success, with the cars proving extremely strong in fast corners and giving engineers plenty of ideas to improve its performance through the tighter bends.

Giovanardi said: "To start from pole position here is not easy. It's in a hole, first downhill and then up. When I saw myself in fourth place I was angry; I thought I'd lost the possibility of a win, but I was able to come back and challenge Matt."

Chilton added: "The car was better in race two because we made changes that helped it go through the corners. In the third race I had success ballast and suffered oversteer, so now we know we have got to change the set-up next time we have a weight penalty."

Kevin Berry, VX technical director, said: "The car seems to be working very well in the quicker corners and we seem to be struggling through the slow ones, but there are lots of positive aspects."