Brands Hatch race two victory puts Jason Plato in British Touring Car Championship lead

Despite running 45kg of success ballast after his race-one victory on the Grand Prix circuit, Plato took the lead at the start and never looked like losing it.

The chasing Mat Jackson (Motorbase Ford Focus) had his hands full with Tom Onslow-Cole's Arena version for much of the race, leaving a controlled Plato to win by just under two seconds in his works Chevrolet Cruze.

Fast-starting Onslow-Cole had made his way by Plato's team-mate Alex MacDowall on lap two, and pressed Jackson hard, but the Motorbase man held firm to take his second runner-up spot of the event.

Onslow-Cole also had Paul O'Neill's Tech-Speed Cruze on his bootlid at the flag. O'Neill had been challenging MacDowall for fourth when the works driver suffered an apparent engine failure, sending MacDowall off at Surtees in a cloud of smoke.

James Nash ran fifth after MacDowall's retirement, but the Triple Eight Vauxhall driver was overtaken at Druids on the final tour by Tom Chilton, making it two Arena Fords in the top five.

Subdued Honda duo Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden were next after their tyre problems in race one. Starting 18th and 19th respectively, the Civics made good early progress to get into the points, but could not get on terms with the lead group and so lost the advantage in the standings.

Shedden held off Andy Neate's Arena Focus to take eighth, while Nick Foster's WSR BMW completed the points scorers despite the late challenge of Tom Boardman's Special Tuning Racing SEAT Leon, and will start on pole for the reversed-grid race three.

Results - 15 laps:

Pos  Driver           Team/Car                 Time/Gap
 1.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet              23m34.540s
 2.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford           + 1.791s
 3.  Tom Onslow-Cole  Arena Ford               + 2.565s
 4.  Paul O'Neill     Tech-Speed Chevrolet     + 3.087s
 5.  Tom Chilton      Arena Ford               + 5.709s
 6.  James Nash       Triple 8 Vauxhall        + 6.916s
 7.  Matt Neal        Honda                    + 9.760s
 8.  Gordon Shedden   Honda                   + 10.994s
 9.  Andy Neate       Arena Ford              + 11.153s
10.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW                 + 11.584s
11.  Tom Boardman     Special Tuning SEAT     + 12.079s
12.  Michael Caine    Motorbase Ford          + 15.473s
13.  Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota          + 15.789s
14.  Rob Austin       Rob Austin Audi         + 21.563s
15.  Martin Byford    AmD Volkswagen          + 22.757s
16.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Vauxhall       + 23.190s
17.  Dave Newsham     Special Tuning SEAT     + 27.707s
18.  Ollie Jackson    Triple 8 Vauxhall       + 30.573s
19.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford          + 35.161s
20.  John George      Tech-Speed Chevrolet    + 35.652s
21.  Lea Wood         Central Honda           + 39.891s
22.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW                 + 44.205s
23.  Tony Gilham      Geoff Steel BMW         + 55.481s
24.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Vauxhall     + 1m00.926s
25.  Chris James      ES Chevrolet          + 1m09.100s
26.  Tony Hughes      Speedworks Toyota     + 1m09.428s
27.  Chris Swanwick   Rob Austin Audi       + 1m24.327s

Retirements:

     Daniel Welch     Welch Proton              13 laps
     Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet                  9 laps