Reid and Hughes on the podium for MG.

Anthony Reid and Warren Hughes brought the black and green MG colour scheme to the second podium of the day at Rockingham today, after a race that Anthony Reid so easily could have won.

Storming away at the start of the race, Anthony took advantage of confusion when Honda Racing's Matt Neal suffered an engine blow as the field took to the infield for the first time in the British Touring Car Championship race two at the Rockingham Motor Speedway.

As Neal drove off the track, it was Reid's MG that emerged from the smoke and dust in the lead, the wily Scot having taken full advantage of the situation. Quick to put in a couple of fastest laps, Anthony made a lead that was to serve him well for the majority of the race.

Behind Anthony at the start, Warren Hughes had also made a strong launch away from the grid and was right in the fight for top honours. Warren was unable to capitalise from Neal's misfortune in quite the same way that Anthony had but was right in the battle.

After Anthony had built himself a strong lead it all looked relatively simple for the race. His lead continued up to the pitstop, which ran faultlessly, and after all the runners had been in it was once more Anthony atop the field.

Whilst Anthony enjoyed good fortune at Rockingham once more Colin Turkington was unable to finish the race, Colin pulling his car off the track on the second lap. Afterwards the youngest driver in the MG Sport and Racing squad was able to reflect on a weekend of opportunities lost, but at least look forward to the next race on the BTCC calendar at the North Yorkshire circuit of Croft.

"At least I'm light for Croft," Colin said after a race where for much of which he was a spectator, "we've done a bit of testing there, and I finished third there last year so it would be great to get a good result."

Back in the action and Anthony was leading as the race was coming into its finishing stages when, elsewhere in the field, Tom Boardman pushed Michael Bentwood into the wall at the outside of the oval. This meant the second appearance for the day of the safety car in a BTCC race.

As in the first race of the day, the safety car did not serve Anthony well. Making a strong move at the restart after the safety car had peeled off, Anthony barrelled into Deene, the scene of so much action over the weekend, and found the brake pedal to be a little long. A slight mistake and the lead was lost.

Anthony fought back valiantly, but ultimately he took second place in his first visit to the podium in 2003. Behind him Warren Hughes took a strong third place after battling with reigning champion James Thompson for much of the final laps.

A clearly happy Anthony Reid described his race as the skies at Rockingham finally dropped the rain they had been threatening for the latter laps of the race. "It was great, I got into the lead of the race early and I controlled the whole thing beautifully," he said. "We had an excellent pitstop and then pulled out even more of a lead, and everything was going beautifully with just a few laps to go and then the safety car was deployed, because of one of the production cars.

"At one stage it looked like the race would have to be aborted, in which case that would have been a win, but typically they cleared everything up, and fortunately Michael Bentwood was fine, they were just taking precautions," Reid continued. "With three laps to go in the race, again I got a beautiful start when the safety car came in, and built a bit of a lead coming through the chicane, and I just braked a little too late, the pedal just went a little bit long because the brakes were a bit cold, which caused the rears to lock up so I slid a bit wide in the hairpin..."

A mistake or just one of those things you experience in racing? "We're only human," Anthony mused. "I've been racing for many years, we all make mistakes, but at least I didn't put it in the wall and I came back to get second."

The MGs certainly look to have been strong contenders in the first visit to Rockingham for the British Touring Car Championship. "The great news is that MGs proved that they have turned a corner, we were the quickest car in the second race, Warren got the fastest lap, so that's really good news," Anthony said.

Warren Hughes was on the podium at Silverstone, and once more took third in the second race of the day. "It was extremely exciting, I didn't get a moment's rest," he said after the action-packed race. "This is what the championship needs, this sort of racing and it's great we managed to put on a good show to fight the Vauxhalls. Anthony should have won the race, if only for a small mistake so it's there to be had, hopefully I'll be in a position to get that first win very soon.

"It makes Croft a little bit difficult because we go there with some more success ballast but it doesn't really matter where you qualify, it just means we're out of sync with race results, but we've shown that from eighth on the grid you can get on the podium, that it's possible, I even thought the win was there," Warren explained. "I passed Yvan on the restart, he ran wide and I thought I was there, but it was such a tussle, it was an amazingly exciting race, at least we've got the podium from it, but I'll not be happy until I've got the win."

So is Warren gunning all out for victory at Croft? "Absolutely, we're just flat out all the time, every race weekend we've just got to be out to get that win."