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 |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments