Plato grabs pole at Oulton Park

The 2001 champion endured an eventful session and lay outside the top 10 after a driveshaft problem early on. But a superb 1m27.186s lap with just a minute of the session remaining sent the RML Chevrolet driver to the front of the grid for the 26th time in his career, knocking his team-mate Mat Jackson off the top spot.

Jackson set his personal best time of the session on an even later run, but it only served to close the gap to Plato to 0.411s.

Behind the all-Chevrolet front-row, Colin Turkington was third quickest in his WSR BMW, while the excellent Adam Jones took the best grid spot yet for the Clyde Valley SEAT squad in fourth.

Jonathan Adam put his Motorbase BMW in a career-best fifth spot, one spot ahead of the Vauxhall of practice pace-setter Fabrizio Giovanardi.

Stephen Jelley, Andrew Jordan and Rob Collard were next up for WSR, Vauxhall and Motorbase respectively, while championship leader Matt Neal completed the top 10 in his works Vectra.

Donington double winner James Thompson could only manage 12th fastest in his Honda. He lost time as the Team Dynamics mechanics struggled to remove a set of his front wheels late in the session.

James Nash qualified a respectable 16th on his BTCC debut in the third of the RML Chevrolets.

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