Plato says delay cost him pole

He and his SEAT team-mate Darren Turner topped the timesheets for most of the wet session, but ended up fourth and sixth after respectively after the rest of the field changed onto slick tyres for a final run on the drying track.

Plato couldn't get back onto track for a final run because he was delayed at the weighbridge in the pit lane.

"The conditions were there for us to nab it at the end," he said, "but I missed the last five laps waiting for the weighbridge.

"One of the requirements of running diesels is that you can't turn them off when they're hot, you have to let them cool down first. When they called us for the weighbridge I had to drive up, wait for two minutes for it to cool down, then turn it off.

"So I ended up sitting there for three minutes while everyone else had the best of the conditions. I think it's fair to assume that had we been able to come in and whack another set of fronts on, we'd have bettered our time and been further up the grid.

"Whether or not we'd have had pole I don't know, but I have a feeling we would have done."