ROB Collard celebrated another victory in the British Touring Car Championship at Croft.

The Hook racer enjoyed a great weekend at the North Yorkshire circuit, as he finished in the top 10 for all three races.

This kept him very much in the mix for the drivers’ championship title, as he trails his West Surrey Racing team mate and leader Sam Tordoff by 12 points.

Collard’s weekend at Croft started in eventful fashion, as he was hit, by one of his championship rivals Matt Neal during qualifying.

The Hook driver had moved over to allow Neal on a quicker lap to pass him, but instead he hit him.

Collard said: “You could have driven a truck through the amount of space I gave him. I just don’t know what he was thinking.”

The incident saw Collard have to start from 13th on the grid for race one, but he made good progress to finish seventh by the end.

In race two, the BMW driver made a great start and was up to fourth by the end of the first lap.

The leading two Subaru drivers Colin Turkington and Jason Plato then came together, third placed man Jack Goff had to slam on the brakes and Collard took the opportunity to take over top spot.

It was his 50th BTCC podium finish in a weekend, which also saw him start his 400th BTCC race.

With the reverse grid, Collard started eighth and did well to move up to fourth and second place in the drivers’ championship.

Looking back over his weekend Collard said: “To bounce back the way we have after Oulton Park, where we had cracking pace, but came away with very little was great to see.”

Collard’s youngest son Jordan Collard had a tough weekend at Croft, in the Ginetta Junior Championship, one of the support races to the BTCC.

The teenager finished 16th in his first outing, 17th in race two and then only completed four laps of his final race.

The BTCC now takes its summer break with the next meeting at Snetterton on the last weekend of July.