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Donington Park BTCC: Jason Plato dominates in Team BMR Volkswagen

Jason Plato dominated free practice at Donington Park ahead of qualifying for the second round of the 2015 British Touring Car Championship

Plato, whose Volkswagen CC is carrying no ballast this weekend after ending the opening round at Brands Hatch 13th in the points, was more than half a second quicker than Honda's Gordon Shedden in the morning session.

The double champion was the only driver to break the 1m09s barrier and then went even faster in the afternoon, ending up with a best time of 1m09.553s.

Shedden gave the Civic Type-R a debut-weekend victory at Brands and joined Plato in the 1m09s in the second session, though he ended up 0.431s slower with 39kg of ballast on board.

Each of the top five in practice two went quicker than they had done in the morning, and Shedden's improvement left him a tenth clear of MG's Andrew Jordan, who like Plato has no ballast at this stage of the weekend.

A similar margin covered the Triple Eight man and Plato's BMR team-mates Colin Turkington (33kg) and Aron Smith (57kg) in fourth and fifth in second practice. They had ended opening practice in the same positions.

The Ciceley-built Mercedes A-Classes of Adam Morgan and Aiden Moffat had been nearest to that top five in the morning but series rookie Mike Bushell was an impressive sixth in the afternoon.

Joint championship leaders Matt Neal and Jack Goff struggled to 12th and 21st in first practice, and though they improved to eighth and ninth in practice two both were over a second slower than Plato's best.

Goff's first session had been compromised when the MG man hit the rear of Hunter Abbott's Audi at the final chicane early on.

The impact severely damaged the A4, leaving Abbott on the sidelines throughout practice and likely qualifying as well.

Goff was given two penalty points on his licence for the incident and an official reprimand, but Triple Eight has appealed.

The WSR BMWs struggled, with Andy Priaulx, Sam Tordoff and Rob Collard outside of the top 10 in both sessions.

Collard was 11th in practice one but slipped to 19th in the afternoon while Tordoff was 17th and 14th as the BMWs struggled with straightline speed.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES:

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Jason Plato Team BMR Volkswagen 1m09.665s - 15
2 Gordon Shedden Honda Honda 1m10.254s 0.589s 18
3 Andrew Jordan MG MG 1m10.282s 0.617s 21
4 Colin Turkington Team BMR Volkswagen 1m10.323s 0.658s 18
5 Aron Taylor-Smith Team BMR Volkswagen 1m10.480s 0.815s 18
6 Adam Morgan Ciceley Racing Mercedes 1m10.610s 0.945s 21
7 Aiden Moffat Aiden Moffat Racing Mercedes 1m10.660s 0.995s 19
8 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 1m10.702s 1.037s 19
9 Josh Cook Power Maxed Chevrolet 1m10.778s 1.113s 18
10 Dave Newsham Power Maxed Chevrolet 1m10.882s 1.217s 20
11 Rob Collard WSR BMW 1m10.908s 1.243s 18
12 Matt Neal Honda Honda 1m11.026s 1.361s 19
13 Mike Bushell AmD Ford 1m11.044s 1.379s 17
14 Warren Scott Team BMR Volkswagen 1m11.055s 1.390s 19
15 Andy Priaulx WSR BMW 1m11.077s 1.412s 20
16 Rob Austin Rob Austin Racing Audi 1m11.081s 1.416s 16
17 Sam Tordoff WSR BMW 1m11.149s 1.484s 20
18 Martin Depper Eurotech Honda 1m11.265s 1.600s 19
19 Jeff Smith Eurotech Honda 1m11.572s 1.907s 18
20 Simon Belcher Handy Motorsport Toyota 1m11.876s 2.211s 19
21 Jack Goff MG MG 1m11.932s 2.267s 8
22 Alex Martin Team Parker Ford 1m12.479s 2.814s 18
23 Kieran Gallagher Team Hard Toyota 1m12.798s 3.133s 19
24 Andy Wilmot Welch Motorsport Proton 1m17.648s 7.983s 13
25 Derek Palmer Jr. Infiniti Infiniti 1m20.303s 10.638s 8
26 Hunter Abbott Rob Austin Racing Audi 1m22.800s 13.135s 7
27 Richard Hawken Infiniti Infiniti 1m26.316s 16.651s 9
28 Stewart Lines Houseman Racing Toyota - - 1

PRACTICE TWO TIMES:

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Jason Plato Team BMR Volkswagen 1m09.553s - 19
2 Gordon Shedden Honda Honda 1m09.984s 0.431s 17
3 Andrew Jordan MG MG 1m10.134s 0.581s 18
4 Colin Turkington Team BMR Volkswagen 1m10.147s 0.594s 18
5 Aron Taylor-Smith Team BMR Volkswagen 1m10.234s 0.681s 22
6 Mike Bushell AmD Ford 1m10.542s 0.989s 19
7 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 1m10.608s 1.055s 18
8 Aiden Moffat Aiden Moffat Racing Mercedes 1m10.665s 1.112s 23
9 Matt Neal Honda Honda 1m10.693s 1.140s 18
10 Jack Goff MG MG 1m10.734s 1.181s 21
11 Adam Morgan Ciceley Racing Mercedes 1m10.805s 1.252s 19
12 Dave Newsham Power Maxed Chevrolet 1m10.827s 1.274s 20
13 Rob Austin Rob Austin Racing Audi 1m10.862s 1.309s 20
14 Sam Tordoff WSR BMW 1m10.888s 1.335s 20
15 Warren Scott Team BMR Volkswagen 1m10.970s 1.417s 21
16 Josh Cook Power Maxed Chevrolet 1m10.997s 1.444s 10
17 Martin Depper Eurotech Honda 1m11.017s 1.464s 19
18 Jeff Smith Eurotech Honda 1m11.201s 1.648s 19
19 Rob Collard WSR BMW 1m11.233s 1.680s 21
20 Andy Priaulx WSR BMW 1m11.438s 1.885s 17
21 Simon Belcher Handy Motorsport Toyota 1m11.583s 2.030s 22
22 Alex Martin Team Parker Ford 1m11.594s 2.041s 21
23 Kieran Gallagher Team Hard Toyota 1m12.089s 2.536s 17
24 Andy Wilmot Welch Motorsport Proton 1m13.451s 3.898s 17
25 Derek Palmer Jr. Infiniti Infiniti 1m13.822s 4.269s 17
26 Stewart Lines Houseman Racing Toyota 1m15.078s 5.525s 7
27 Richard Hawken Infiniti Infiniti 1m16.441s 6.888s 16
28 Daniel Welch Welch Motorsport Proton 1m30.001s 20.448s 3

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