IN front of a packed Easter Monday crowd, Hale-based Tech 9 Motorsport took an early lead in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship.

They won the second GT race of the weekend on home ground at Oulton Park's Unipart Festival.

The weekend had started with the team taking fourth place on Saturday afternoon in a closely fought round one.

At the front of the field the bio-ethanol powered Aston Martin of Jonathan Cocker and Paul Drayson spun just 10 minutes from the end of the hour-long race, handing the lead and victory to Hector Lester and Tim Mullen's Ferrari 430.

Just five minutes later, Tech 9's Matt Harris was running in third place overall having taken over from Oliver Bryant.

Unfortunately for him Godfrey Jones managed to pull off a bold move around the outside of Old Hall corner to snatch the final place on the podium.

In race two Harris made the most of slippery conditions in the Porsche before handing over to Bryant, who emerged from the pits in the lead.

A mature drive ensured that he kept a determined Cocker behind him until the chequered flag, taking the championship lead with it.

Greg and Leo Mansell, sons of 1992 F1 World Champion Nigel, had a mixed start to their season of British Formula 3.

Greg had a solid start to his campaign with two top 10 finishes, while his brother fared less well.

Leo got caught up in an incident in race one, dropping back to 20th place and in race two a similar situation occurred; this time his race ended when he was hit by a rival at the high-speed Druids corner.

With nine cars crashing in race two, the track action had to be stopped twice In the end Germany's Maro Engel won the first race on Monday with Estonian Marko Asmer claiming victory in race two to head the points table.