There was a three-way Hampshire battle for Independents Cup honours in the Green Flag British Touring Car Championship meeting at Brands Hatch.

Gavin Pyper took his second win in the Independents category for the Thruxton-based GA Motorsport team.

But when the driveshaft of his Vauxhall Astra Coupe broke second time out, it looked as though Hook's Rob Collard would take the win until his Astra Coupe expired with electrical problems.

It left Alton's James Kaye in a Honda Civic and Carl Breeze in a Peugeot to battle for victory and Kaye took it, to complete a good day's work after finishing third behind Pyper and Dan Eves (Peugeot) in race one. Collard had led in that one too before going out with a suspension problem.

Pyper, a 23-year-old Scot now living on the Hampshire/Surrey border finished a superb eighth overall in the first race, coming in ahead of some well funded factory men including David Leslie in the Petronas Proton.

The Independents Class is for private teams running Touring Cars against the might of the manufacturer squads and right now Collard heads a Hamphire one-two with Pyper second, although the GA Motorsport driver insisted: "when the car is running well we are quickest Independent. There are a few things we need to do to get up there with the works teams, but they have more money than us!"

But Collard reckons his ex works Astra has the power to give Pyper a good run for his money and showed it again in the second race at Brands when he, too, was keeping pace with the factory men until the safety car came out, and persuaded most of the field to make their mandatory pit stop.

When he returned to the fray, Collard dropped back and eventually retired leaving Kaye to take the glory and erase the memory of a miserable Mondello when he had crashed out and failed to score.

Honda, after their welcome return to the BTCC, opened their victory account with Matt Neal winning race one from the Vauxhalls of Paul O'Neill and Yvan Muller.

But Vauxhall, who had won both the opening rounds at Mondello, turned the tables second time out with Muller winning from team-mate James Thompson who had moved up to second after a brush with Colin Turkington which left the MG Sports driver in the barriers on the last lap but one.

Former BTCC champion Jason Plato confirmed that he could be joining the GA Motorsport Team although he pointed out: "There are a few things to be sorted out yet."