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Jason Plato pips Matt Neal to Oulton Park British Touring Car pole with late run

MG driver Jason Plato qualified on pole for Sunday's first British Touring Car race at Oulton Park after a hard-fought session

With the track drying but rain threatening, there was a flurry of activity early on. WSR BMW drivers Tom Onslow-Cole and Rob Collard, Gordan Sheddon (Honda), Andrew Jordan (Eurotech) and Plato all held pole at one time or another in the early stages.

Plato had a big moment at Cascades and reigning champion Matt Neal seemed to have secured pole for Honda when he set a time of 1m26.949s to open up a gap of half a second over the field.

Water on the track at Cascades caught out several drivers, but with just 30 seconds to go Plato's works MG snatched pole with a 1m26.872s.

"We put ourselves under a bit of pressure - I made a mistake on my first run at Lodge, then ran out of talent on the exit of Cascades," said Plato. "We had one more run so I'm really pleased with that."

Collard and Jordan also both put in strong final laps, but a couple of minor errors limited the BMW to third, while traffic held Jordan to fourth, less than 0.2s slower than Plato.

Shedden ended up fifth, just ahead of Onslow-Cole, while Frank Wrathall's Dynojet Toyota Avensis jumped up the timesheets late on to secure seventh.

Daniel Welch recorded his best BTCC qualifying with eighth in his Proton.

Like Wrathall, Dave Newsham (ES Vauxhall) seemed to struggle for much of the session, but finally moved up to ninth in the closing moments.

Motorbase managed to fix Mat Jackson's Ford Focus after its practice crash and he was immediately a top-six contender when he came out. But an air lock in the cooling system curtailed his running and left him 10th by the end of the session.

Former single-seater racer Will Bratt qualified 18th for his BTCC debut in Rob Austin Racing's Audi A4.

Pos  Driver           Team/Car           Time       Gap
 1.  Jason Plato      MG                 1m26.872s
 2.  Matt Neal        Honda              1m26.949s  + 0.077s
 3.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW            1m26.989s  + 0.117s
 4.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Honda     1m27.051s  + 0.179s
 5.  Gordon Shedden   Honda              1m27.457s  + 0.585s
 6.  Tom Onslow-Cole  WSR BMW            1m27.503s  + 0.631s
 7.  Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota     1m27.659s  + 0.787s
 8.  Daniel Welch     Welch Proton       1m27.914s  + 1.042s
 9.  Dave Newsham     ES Vauxhall        1m27.969s  + 1.097s
10.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford     1m28.033s  + 1.161s
11.  Aron Smith       Motorbase Ford     1m28.093s  + 1.221s
12.  Andy Neate       MG                 1m28.125s  + 1.253s
13.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW            1m28.155s  + 1.283s
14.  Lea Wood         Central Vauxhall   1m28.178s  + 1.306s
15.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford     1m28.241s  + 1.369s
16.  Adam Morgan      Speedworks Toyota  1m28.357s  + 1.485s
17.  Tony Gilham      Gilham Honda       1m28.521s  + 1.649s
18.  Will Bratt       Austin Audi        1m28.850s  + 1.978s
19.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Honda     1m28.991s  + 2.119s
20.  Ollie Jackson    AmD Volkswagen     1m29.572s  + 2.700s
21.  Chris James      ES Vauxhall        1m29.657s  + 2.785s
22.  Tony Hughes      Speedworks Toyota  1m31.689s  + 4.817s

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