Plato ends day with victory
Jason Plato has taken his 63rd British Touring Car victory by winning the reversed-grid race at Thruxton this afternoon
The RML Chevrolet Cruze driver started on the front row after finishing eighth in race two. He beat poleman Tom Boardman (Special Tuning Racing SEAT Leon) off the line and led throughout, despite a safety car period caused by Tom Chilton crashing his Arena Motorsport Ford Focus at Allard.
A great start from Mat Jackson (Motorbase Performance Focus) took him to second. He briefly challenged Plato, but could not keep up with the normally aspirated Cruze and ultimately only narrowly held off Boardman.
James Nash's Triple 8 Engineering Vauxhall Vectra was right behind Boardman at the end, and had the two Hondas of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden shadowing him in the late stages.
Earlier, when Chilton had run wide at Allard, Eurotech's Andrew Jordan ran wide too. That allowed Shedden and Neal to go by, the latter after some contact with the Vectra at the complex.
After the restart the fight between Nash, Alex MacDowall (RML Cruze), Neal, Shedden and Jordan for fourth got very close. Shedden was delayed, allowing Neal through, and MacDowall was soon shuffled back to eighth.
A struggling Jordan held MacDowall off to take seventh, some way behind the top six as the Hondas pulled away, while Tony Gilham took ninth in his Triple 8 Vectra.
After starting on row 10, Tom Onslow-Cole took his AmD Milltek VW Golf through the field to complete the points scorers.
Results - 18 laps: Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Jason Plato Chevrolet 25m54.654s 2. Mat Jackson Motorbase Ford + 1.444s 3. Tom Boardman Special Tuning SEAT + 2.217s 4. James Nash Triple 8 Vauxhall + 2.601s 5. Matt Neal Honda + 3.110s 6. Gordon Shedden Honda + 3.463s 7. Andrew Jordan Eurotech Vauxhall + 8.790s 8. Alex MacDowall Chevrolet + 9.113s 9. Tony Gilham Triple 8 Vauxhall + 10.507s 10. Tom Onslow-Cole AmD Volkswagen + 11.062s 11. Jeff Smith Eurotech Vauxhall + 17.682s 12. Andy Neate Arena Ford + 18.300s 13. Rob Collard WSR BMW + 18.468s 14. Paul O'Neill Tech-Speed Chevrolet + 19.568s 15. Liam Griffin Motorbase Ford + 19.875s 16. John George Tech-Speed Chevrolet + 26.512s 17. Nick Foster WSR BMW + 27.293s 18. Chris James ES Chevrolet + 54.655s Retirements: Tom Chilton Arena Ford 5 laps Frank Wrathall Dynojet Toyota 2 laps
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