Donington Park BTCC: Plato tops practice from Smiley

The bespectacled 53-year-old veteran “put some good boots on for a quali sim” in the closing moments in his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra, dislodging long-time pacesetter Josh Cook from the top of the times.

Chris Smiley moved to the fore at the same time, his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N also bettering Cook’s best, but falling 0.090 seconds short of Plato’s marker.

“We’ve found some stuff in the week which we’ve been struggling with all year,” said two-time champion Plato.

“We certainly found some issues with how my engine performed – we found some strange things that were very apparent [last time out] at Silverstone, to do with minuscule applications of the throttle, where we were losing loads of boost. It was like throwing a parachute out of the back.

“Our engine guy has been working on it this morning and he thinks he’s found a solution to it – fingers crossed we’ve found it.

“The issues we’ve had we’ve chipped away, and each time found an improvement.”

While Plato and Smiley are not carrying any success ballast this weekend, Cook has 39kg aboard his BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R.

Cook looked superb on the circuit, and set the third fastest time in each of the two sessions, setting the theoretical best overall on sector times in the opening period.

Gordon Shedden was another late improver in a Team Dynamics Honda on 15kg of ballast, and he ended up fourth fastest, just 0.001s adrift of Cook.

Gordon Shedden, Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Aron Taylor-Smith, buoyed by the recent announcement of a new multi-year deal with Team Hard, lay second to Cook in the times for much of the second session.

But the late improvements demoted the Irishman’s Cupra to sixth, with team-mate Jack Mitchell putting in by far the best performance of his BTCC career to go fifth in the late moments.

Rory Butcher, now with 27kg of ballast on board his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla after his double Silverstone win, looked strong again – the Scot was fourth in the opening session, and ended up seventh in the second.

That was enough to edge out the Excel8 Hyundai of Tom Ingram, who did a good job on 66kg of success weight to go eighth fastest.

The fastest two drivers in the slower opening session failed to improve in the later period, although their morning times put them just inside the top 10 overall. Adam Morgan set the pace earlier on in his Ciceley Motorsport BMW 330i M Sport, pipping Senna Proctor’s BTC Honda by 0.003s.

Championship leader Ash Sutton looks to be a borderline top-10 contender with 75kg ballast aboard his Laser Tools Racing Infiniti Q50 following free practice, and he was slightly quicker than fellow title contender Jake Hill’s Motorbase-run MB Motorsport Ford Focus (57kg ballast) in each session.

Colin Turkington ran in the midfield in his West Surrey Racing-run BMW, on 48kg of ballast.

While the second session ran drama-free, the first featured two red flags.

The first came when Jack Goff parked his Team Hard Cupra on the grass on the inside of Schwantz Curve when it cut out, while the second – which came with a minute to go and led to a termination of the session – was caused by team-mate Nicolas Hamilton spinning into the Craner Curves gravel trap.

Donington Park BTCC - FP2 results

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Jason Plato	20	1'09.482
2	Chris Smiley	21	1'09.572	0.090
3	Josh Cook	18	1'09.705	0.223
4	Gordon Shedden	21	1'09.706	0.224
5	Jack Mitchell	21	1'09.751	0.269
6	Aron Taylor-Smith	20	1'09.764	0.282
7	Rory Butcher	23	1'09.771	0.289
8	Tom Ingram	20	1'09.776	0.294
9	Stephen Jelley	21	1'09.855	0.373
10	Tom Oliphant	28	1'09.871	0.389
11	Ashley Sutton	25	1'09.874	0.392
12	Daniel Lloyd	16	1'09.880	0.398
13	Tom Chilton	22	1'09.927	0.445
14	Jake Hill	21	1'09.986	0.504
15	Senna Proctor	19	1'09.991	0.509
16	Adam Morgan	22	1'09.999	0.517
17	Daniel Rowbottom	18	1'10.011	0.529
18	Sam Smelt	23	1'10.025	0.543
19	Colin Turkington	25	1'10.115	0.633
20	Jack Butel	25	1'10.118	0.636
21	Aiden Moffat	27	1'10.265	0.783
22	Jade Edwards	25	1'10.389	0.907
23	Sam Osborne	22	1'10.491	1.009
24	Carl Boardley	25	1'10.577	1.095
25	Ollie Jackson	22	1'10.601	1.119
26	Andy Neate	16	1'10.690	1.208
27	Jack Goff	14	1'10.706	1.224
28	Nicolas Hamilton	23	1'10.988	1.506
29	Rick Parfitt Jr.	20	1'11.243	1.761
View full results

Donington Park BTCC - FP1 results

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Adam Morgan	13	1'09.840
2	Senna Proctor	19	1'09.843	0.003
3	Josh Cook	17	1'09.939	0.099
4	Rory Butcher	18	1'09.950	0.110
5	Sam Smelt	19	1'10.085	0.245
6	Gordon Shedden	15	1'10.088	0.248
7	Chris Smiley	15	1'10.122	0.282
8	Ashley Sutton	20	1'10.184	0.344
9	Tom Ingram	17	1'10.222	0.382
10	Aron Taylor-Smith	16	1'10.277	0.437
11	Jake Hill	18	1'10.281	0.441
12	Tom Chilton	18	1'10.283	0.443
13	Jason Plato	14	1'10.335	0.495
14	Aiden Moffat	19	1'10.354	0.514
15	Daniel Rowbottom	15	1'10.389	0.549
16	Stephen Jelley	20	1'10.514	0.674
17	Colin Turkington	16	1'10.532	0.692
18	Daniel Lloyd	13	1'10.602	0.762
19	Ollie Jackson	18	1'10.616	0.776
20	Jack Mitchell	18	1'10.672	0.832
21	Andy Neate	18	1'10.803	0.963
22	Jack Goff	14	1'10.820	0.980
23	Tom Oliphant	18	1'10.823	0.983
24	Sam Osborne	10	1'10.998	1.158
25	Jack Butel	15	1'11.271	1.431
26	Nicolas Hamilton	18	1'11.400	1.560
27	Rick Parfitt Jr.	13	1'11.505	1.665
28	Jade Edwards	17	1'11.852	2.012
29	Carl Boardley	15	1'17.944	8.104
View full results