James Thompson takes his works Honda Accord into the final rounds of the Auto Trader British Touring Car Championship on Sunday with mixed feelings.

Having seen his title hopes dashed earlier in the season in a car that all-too often failed to hold the pace, he now wants two faultless runs to be sure of third place.

The Silverstone circuit, where the curtain drops on a season of magnificent highs and traumatic lows for the York-born driver, is one that can produce those precious points for Thompson as long as his car can repeat its Oulton Park outing last weekend when for the first time it comprehensively outran the Nissan Primeras of the championship leaders, Laurent Aiello and David Leslie.

Although the title will go to one of the Nissan drivers - they are way ahead of the rest of the field, although only 26 points separate the two - Thompson has to beat the reigning champion, Swiss driver Rickard Rydell who, despite a shaky start to the season in the Volvo S40, is now in third place, but with just a single point dividing him from the Yorkshire driver.

The Silverstone weekend will be the last for the Volvo team (the Swedes are withdrawing from the series, as are Renault) so Rydell will want to leave on a high. For Thompson to take third place he must be ahead of the Volvo driver on the grid for both the 15-lap Sprint and for the 30-lap Feature race. Once there Thompson should stay ahead and he will be one happy man. But if the Accord unaccountably falls off the pace, as it has done on and off all season, then consoling words will mean little.

Both races can be seen live on BBC2 Grandstand, the Sprint at 12.45pm and the Feature Race at 3.40pm.

Renault UK has announced it is closing down its rally programme after this season's British round of the World Rally Championship in November.

Instead it is concentrating on its British Formula 3 Championship, Renault Sport Clio Cup and the Formula Renault 2000 Championship.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.