Plato secures 50th BTCC race victory

Plato ran third during the early stages behind Stephen Jelley's WSR BMW and his RML Chevrolet team-mate Mat Jackson.

When Jackson put a forceful move on Jelley for the lead and pushed him wide at Deene hairpin on lap seven, Plato followed him through. He then overtook Jackson by diving down the inside at the same corner nine laps later.

Plato's win, his fourth of the season, leaves him just 20 points behind series leader Colin Turkington with four races left this season, and means that the title cannot now be decided this weekend.

Turkington (WSR BMW) made a rocket start from 10th to make it up to sixth on the opening lap - right behind his main championship rival Fabrizio Giovanardi. He eventually finished fourth, one place behind the Vauxhall, meaning that his lead over the Italian is now just five points.

Jonathan Adam was fifth in the only Motorbase BMW that started the race - his team-mate Rob Collard pulling into the pits at the end of the formation lap with a technical problem.

Jelley fell back to sixth, ahead of James Nash's RML Chevrolet, Andrew Jordan's Vauxhall and Tom Chilton's Arena Ford, which will start the next race from pole position on the reversed grid.

Earlier the field was bunched up by two safety car periods, the first caused by John George's crash at the Pif-Paf, and the second after his TH Honda team-mate Matt Hamilton's car became beached in the gravel at Tarzan.

Matt Neal did not make the start of the race due to the extensive damage caused to his Vauxhall earlier on, but did join in during the second half of the race. He did not complete enough laps to be classified as a finisher.

Pos  Driver               Car          Time/Gap
 1.  Jason Plato          Chevrolet  29m05.784s
 2.  Mat Jackson          Chevrolet    + 0.886s
 3.  Fabrizio Giovanardi  Vauxhall     + 1.420s
 4.  Colin Turkington     BMW          + 1.802s
 5.  Jonathan Adam        BMW          + 3.662s
 6.  Stephen Jelley       BMW          + 4.226s
 7.  James Nash           Chevrolet    + 6.007s
 8.  Andrew Jordan        Vauxhall     + 8.313s
 9.  Tom Chilton          Ford        + 11.916s
10.  Johnny Herbert       Honda       + 13.478s
11.  Harry Vaulkhard      Chevrolet   + 13.853s
12.  Anthony Reid         BMW         + 15.625s
13.  David Pinkney        Honda       + 15.934s
14.  Martin Johnson       Vauxhall    + 23.531s

Retirements:

     Paul O'Neill         Honda      16 laps
     Gordon Shedden       SEAT       15 laps
     Matthew Hamilton     Honda      9 laps
     Matt Neal            Vauxhall   6 laps
     John George          Honda      2 laps
     Rob Collard          BMW        0 laps
     Tom Onslow-Cole      Ford       0 laps