Plato doubles up in race two
Jason Plato increased his British Touring Car Championship lead to 24 points over Matt Neal with his second victory of the day in race two at Snetterton
Starting from pole position, the Chevrolet driver was never pressured, despite five early laps behind the safety car and 45kg of success ballast inside his Cruze.
He pulled away to win by 2.9 seconds from the Arena Fords of Tom Chilton and Tom Onslow-Cole. It was Plato's fourth win of the year and the 57th of his illustrious career.
In what was an unusually processional race, the only significant action involved Mat Jackson's Motorbase BMW.
Carrying 36kg of success ballast after his second place in race one, Jackson ran wide at Coram on the sixth lap, and lost positions to both Fords two turns later.
He eventually dropped back to fifth, behind his team-mate Steven Kane, who took advantage of another slide wide at Sears on lap 14.
Between Kane and Matt Neal, who finished ninth after starting at the back of the grid in his Honda, were Jackson, Andrew Jordan (Eurotech Vauxhall), Rob Collard (WSR BMW) and Gordon Shedden (Honda). All were separated by 2.2s.
James Nash completed the top 10 and will start the reversed grid third race from pole position. But the Triple 8 Vauxhall driver was partly responsible for triggering the deployment of the safety car.
Nash and Tom Boardman made contact exiting The Esses on the opening lap, the Special Tuning UK SEAT driver being spun backwards across the grass and then being collected by the Tech-Speed Hondas of Paul O'Neill and John George as he cannoned back across the circuit.
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Jason Plato Chevrolet 28m20.424s 2. Tom Chilton Ford + 2.926s 3. Tom Onslow-Cole Ford + 3.418s 4. Steven Kane BMW + 10.673s 5. Mat Jackson BMW + 11.219s 6. Andrew Jordan Vauxhall + 11.807s 7. Rob Collard BMW + 12.078s 8. Gordon Shedden Honda + 12.394s 9. Matt Neal Honda + 12.824s 10. James Nash Vauxhall + 14.535s 11. David Pinkney Vauxhall + 25.181s 12. Martin Johnson Vauxhall + 33.600s 13. Andy Neate BMW + 34.924s 14. Lea Wood Honda + 35.234s 15. Shaun Hollamby Volkswagen + 38.994s 16. Martin Depper BMW + 39.287s Retirements: Alex MacDowall Chevrolet 9 laps Arthur Forster BMW 8 laps Tom Boardman SEAT 0 laps Paul O'Neill Honda 0 laps John George Honda 0 laps
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