Fabrizio Giovanardi sped through the wet at Silverstone yesterday to move within touching distance of the British Touring Car Championship title. The Italian managed only eleventh place in his Vauxhall Vectra in the opening race as Jason Plato made up ground in the championship, but Giovanardi came to terms with the soggy circuit to win the second race and take third place in the third race.

Those performances gave the Italian a 44-point advantage over Plato before the final round of the season, at Brands Hatch on September 21. With only 52 points still available, the VX Racing driver is now the firm favourite to take the title.

With Vauxhall securing the manufacturers' and team titles, Giovanardi, 41, is determined to make it a treble. “You never know in motor racing but I'm pretty confident going to Brands Hatch only needing a handful of points,” he said.

Having won the first race yesterday, Plato had problems with his tyres next time out that caused him to lose the race lead and fall away to seventh place, which allowed Giovanardi to claim a priceless win. Mat Jackson, of the BMW Dealer Team, won the third race, but Giovanardi's third place was valuable as Plato finished fifth.

In the two World Touring Car Championship races in Oschersleben yesterday, Robert Huff claimed second-place and third-place finishes. The Englishman, driving for the Chevrolet team, started on pole for the first race in Germany alongside the title contender, Gabriele Tarquini, in the SEAT Sport Tdi. Tarquini went ahead, but Augusto Farfus took the lead out of the first corner and stayed there.

Huff finished second with a best lap time of 1min 37.12sec but his fellow Briton, Andy Priaulx, went out of the race as he attempted to overtake Tarquini for seventh. The collision ended with Priaulx going backwards into the tyre wall and out of the race.

In the second race, Felix Porteiro, the BMW Italy-Spain driver, led from start to finish for his first victory of the season. Huff came up from seventh position on the reversed grid to take the final podium spot, with Priaulx fifth. Yvan Muller finished in eighth position, scoring one point in his fight for the title. The Frenchman leads the race for the title with 66 points, two ahead of Tarquini. Priaulx lies third with 53 points, 11 behind Tarquini, with Rickard Rydell, of Sweden, two behind and one ahead of Huff.

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