Plato dominates Brands Hatch race 1

Plato, who retains only a slender mathematical chance of winning the drivers' title after a season dogged by misfortune, made a strong start from pole position to hold off teammate and fellow front-row starter Darren Turner at the start.

Despite the early interruption of the safety car after Vauxhall's Gavin Smith and Kartworld Racing's Jason Hughes collided at the start, Plato assumed a comfortable lead at the restart to take victory by 3.363 seconds.

Unfortunately for SEAT, it was not to be a one-two, as Turner was forced to retire on the eighth lap when an engine warning light came on.

"It's a bit disappointing because it was all going really well," said Turner. "I turned the engine off after talking to the team over the radio and they're changing the engine before the next race, but I'm going to have to start at the back of the grid for the next race.

This handed second place to Team Dynamics driver Matt Neal, who took one step closer to securing a second successive BTCC crown. "Second is much more than I'd hoped for the first race before the weekend," said Neal.

Teammate Gordon Shedden was on course to claim third, only to drop to seventh on the final lap after suffering a puncture. "It was so disappointing," said Shedden. "To be cruising in third place and looking forward to the podium and to get it taken away from you by a puncture is frustrating."

Shedden's misfortune handed the final podium position to the WSR MG ZS of Colin Turkington. Significantly, it was the first BTCC podium for a bio-ethanol fuelled car. The Northern Irishman finished comfortably clear of Tom Chilton, who made a flying start in his Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch to take a strong fourth ahead of the second WSR car of Rob Collard.

Collard had earlier lost out to the third Dynamics Integra of Gareth Howell at Clearways, only for the local hero to retire shortly afterwards with a front-right puncture, the result of contact with Collard earlier in the race.

Italian Fabrizio Giovanardi finished sixth after spending much of the first part of the race embroiled in a close battle with independent Mike Jordan. Unfortunately, Jordan dropped back with a worsening gearbox problem, and had to settle for eighth place behind Shedden.

Dave Pinkney held off the challenge of BTCC returnee Paul O'Neill's Tech-Speed Motorsport Vauxhall Astra Coupe for the final point. Kaye had held the advantage over the pair in the early stages, but dropped back to 12th as a result of struggles with the handling of his battle-scarred Honda Civic Type-R.

Of the newcomers, former TVR Le Mans driver Chris Stockton recovered from an off at Paddock to take an excellent 13th place for the BTC Racing despite the team only getting hold of their two Lexus IS200s ten days ago.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Driver               Make                        Time
 1.  Jason Plato          SEAT Leon                   24:04.158
 2.  Matt Neal            Honda Integra               +   3.363
 3.  Colin Turkington     MG ZS                       +   6.852
 4.  Tom Chilton          Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch  +   9.291
 5.  Robert Collard       MG ZS                       +  13.966
 6.  Fabrizio Giovanardi  Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch  +  17.285
 7.  Gordon Shedden       Honda Integra               +  19.016
 8.  Mike Jordan          Honda Integra               +  22.642
 9.  David Pinkney        Honda Integra               +  23.875
10.  Paul O'Neill         Vauxhall Astra Coupe        +  24.054
11.  James Kaye           Honda Civic Type R          +  37.664
12.  Adam Jones           Lexus IS200                 +  45.249
13.  Chris Stockton       Lexus IS200                 +  48.322
14.  Martyn Bell          BMW 320i E46                +  49.880
15.  Nick Leason          Vauxhall Astra Coupe        +   1 lap
16.  Darren Dowling       Lexus IS200                 +   1 lap
17.  Mark Smith           Alfa Romeo 156              +   1 lap
18.  Mark Jones           Lexus IS200                 +   1 lap

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Driver               Make                        On Lap
     Gareth Howell        Honda Integra                 24
     Darren Turner        SEAT Leon                      7
     Eoin Murray          Alfa Romeo 156                 7
     Jason Hughes         MG ZS                          1
     Gavin Smith          Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch     0

Fastest Lap: Jason Plato, 49.483 on lap 7