Rockingham BTCC: Jason Plato quickest again in second practice

Plato's MG, which also topped the earlier session, set several times good enough to top the timesheets.

The double champion's best, set in the first 10 minutes of the session, was almost a second faster than Plato's own 2011 Rockingham pole.

As before, Plato was chased by the Hondas. The Eurotech-run machine of Andrew Jordan was second, nearly half a second behind the MG, just ahead of the works cars of Gordon Shedden and points leader Matt Neal.

The fight to be best of the rest was tight and for much of the session Rob Collard's WSR BMW, the Speedworks Toyota of Adam Morgan and Rob Austin's Audi A4 were all covered by a tenth of a second.

In the closing moments, however, all were jumped by Mat Jackson. The Motorbase Ford driver had spent much of the session in the pits with steering problems, but came out to go fifth fastest late on.

Andy Neate, driving the second works MG, was also a late improver to go sixth.

Austin ended up seventh, while Jeff Smith made it four NGTC Civics in the top eight in the second Eurotech car.

BTCC rookie Howard Fuller was 19th in Tony Gilham Racing's Honda and ended his session in the Gracelands gravel.

Pos  Driver           Team/Car           Time       Gap
 1.  Jason Plato      MG                 1m22.806s
 2.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Honda     1m23.284s  + 0.478s
 3.  Gordon Shedden   Honda              1m23.342s  + 0.536s
 4.  Matt Neal        Honda              1m23.550s  + 0.744s
 5.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford     1m23.598s  + 0.792s
 6.  Andy Neate       MG                 1m23.619s  + 0.813s
 7.  Rob Austin       Austin Audi        1m23.672s  + 0.866s
 8.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Honda     1m23.722s  + 0.916s
 9.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW            1m23.743s  + 0.937s
10.  Adam Morgan      Speedworks Toyota  1m23.752s  + 0.946s
11.  Tom Onslow-Cole  WSR BMW            1m24.030s  + 1.224s
12.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW            1m24.182s  + 1.376s
13.  Aron Smith       Motorbase Ford     1m24.196s  + 1.390s
14.  Dave Newsham     ES Vauxhall        1m24.377s  + 1.571s
15.  Will Bratt       Austin Audi        1m24.686s  + 1.880s
16.  Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota     1m24.989s  + 2.183s
17.  Chris James      ES Vauxhall        1m26.053s  + 3.247s
18.  Ollie Jackson    AmD Volkswagen     1m26.091s  + 3.285s
19.  Howard Fuller    Gilham Honda       1m26.273s  + 3.467s
20.  Tony Hughes      Speedworks Toyota  1m26.564s  + 3.758s