Oulton Park BTCC: Jason Plato on pole after dominating qualifying

Plato set a 1m26.130s early on in the session and then sat in the pits as his rivals repeatedly tried - and failed - to match him.

Reigning champion Gordon Shedden's works Honda Civic got closest with 1m26.429s, only to lose the time for exceeding the track limits.

That dropped him to fifth, but the Honda man immediately went back out and snatched second back with a time a fraction slower than his earlier effort.

It was, nevertheless, still half a second down on Plato. And when Sam Tordoff made a late improvement, MG secured its first front-row lockout of the NGTC era.

Shedden held on to third, while a late effort from a surprised Dave Newsham annexed fourth in his Speedworks Toyota Avensis.

This season's form man Andrew Jordan could not quite deliver in his Eurotech Honda and ended up fifth. He suffered with a slide through Cascades on his final effort.

Frank Wrathall's Dynojet Toyota Avensis rounded out the top six, just ahead of Colin Turkington's WSR BMW.

Championship leader Matt Neal suffered a spin at the Knickerbrook chicane and ended up eighth, with exactly the same time as Adam Morgan's Ciceley Racing Avensis.

Both were less than 0.3s behind second-placed Tordoff, but 0.7s down on poleman Plato.

After initially trailing Liam Griffin, Lea Wood was the top S2000 runner, going 19th overall with his Vauxhall Vectra.

Pos  Driver            Team/Car           Time       Gap
 1.  Jason Plato       MG                 1m26.130s
 2.  Sam Tordoff       MG                 1m26.561s  + 0.431s
 3.  Gordon Shedden    Honda              1m26.630s  + 0.500s
 4.  Dave Newsham      Speedworks Toyota  1m26.706s  + 0.576s
 5.  Andrew Jordan     Eurotech Honda     1m26.728s  + 0.598s
 6.  Frank Wrathall    Dynojet Toyota     1m26.742s  + 0.612s
 7.  Colin Turkington  WSR BMW            1m26.801s  + 0.671s
 8.  Matt Neal         Honda              1m26.831s  + 0.701s
 9.  Adam Morgan       Ciceley Toyota     1m26.831s  + 0.701s
10.  Tom Onslow-Cole   Hard VW            1m27.057s  + 0.927s
11.  Mat Jackson       Motorbase Ford     1m27.076s  + 0.946s
12.  Ollie Jackson     Speedworks Toyota  1m27.375s  + 1.245s
13.  Daniel Welch      Welch Proton       1m27.417s  + 1.287s
14.  Jack Goff         Hard Vauxhall      1m27.435s  + 1.305s
15.  Jeff Smith        Eurotech Honda     1m27.549s  + 1.419s
16.  Rob Collard       WSR BMW            1m27.608s  + 1.478s
17.  Aron Smith        Motorbase Ford     1m27.634s  + 1.504s
18.  Rob Austin        Austin Audi        1m27.936s  + 1.806s
19.  Lea Wood          Wood Vauxhall*     1m28.068s  + 1.938s
20.  James Cole        Hard Vauxhall      1m28.203s  + 2.073s
21.  Liam Griffin      Motorbase Ford*    1m28.260s  + 2.130s
22.  Nick Foster       WSR BMW            1m28.378s  + 2.248s
23.  Will Bratt        Austin Audi        1m28.570s  + 2.440s
24.  Aaron Mason       AmD VW*            1m29.048s  + 2.918s
25.  David Nye         Welch Ford*        1m29.412s  + 3.282s
26.  Warren Scott      BMR SEAT*          1m29.873s  + 3.743s

* S2000