CIRCUMSTANCES conspired to deny Hampshire's James Kaye a class win in the Britcar Endurance Series at Donington Park.

Two restarts caused by early accidents, then an unscheduled visit to the pits to put on rain tyres worked against Kaye and the three-man Barwell Motorsport team in their Honda Integra Type R.

Instead of the two-and-a-half-hour race having two mandatory pit stops, organisers changed it to just one. It left the Barwell team with one extra stop to accommodate for their third driver and it dropped them from first to third in Class 3.

Kaye, who took the final Barwell drive, battled hard to catch the second car, a VW Golf, but narrowly failed - a disappointing climax to a race in which co-driver Mark Lemmer had snatched the overall lead from David Leslie (BMW M3) before the rains came and forced the field in to shed their slicks.

It proved a frustrating day for the Barwell team. Salisbury's Alan Blencowe in the Honda Civic was second placed in class when he handed over to BTCC campaigner John George, who had done only a few laps in the car.

Unfortunately George slipped the car off into the gravel trap and, although he was able to get going again, the Civic had dropped back to fifth in class.

Next race in the Britcar series is at Brands Hatch on Saturday.