Plato takes record 61st BTCC win

The reigning champion started his RML Chevrolet Cruze third and grabbed second from Andrew Jordan's Eurotech Racing Vauxhall Vectra into the first corner.

Poleman Matt Neal led into the corner his Honda Racing Civic, but slid wide allowing Plato to snatch the lead on the run to Druids. When they arrived at the tight right-hander, Neal was removed from the action in a clash involving Jordan and Plato's team-mate Alex MacDowall, who emerged third behind Plato and Triple 8's James Nash.

After a brief safety car period to clean up the mess, Plato bolted, chased by Nash's Vectra, while Tom Chilton's Arena Motorsport Ford Focus attacked MacDowall. He went by on the back straight and completed the move at Clearways despite a grassy excursion at Surtees.

The Motorbase Performance Focus of Mat Jackson followed Chilton through and would shadow Chilton for the rest of the race.

Nash gained on Plato in the closing stages, indicating the turbo teams are not suffering too heavily from tyre wear, but the double champion held on to become the most successful BTCC driver ever with his 61st career victory.

Behind Chilton and Jackson in third and fourth came MacDowall. Fifth place could have fallen to Jordan, who fought his way past MacDowall and Tom Boardman's Special Tuning SEAT Leon only to suffer a front-left puncture.

Neal's team-mate Gordon Shedden completed the top six after a fighting drive from the back of the grid following his free practice crash.

Boardman pitted after a clash with Shedden, leaving Paul O'Neill to take seventh in his first race with the ex-Plato Chevrolet run by Tech-Speed.

Tony Gilham was the top newcomer, with a fine run to eighth in his Triple 8 Vauxhall Vectra, ahead of Eurotech's Jeff Smith. BTCC debutant Dave Newsham (Geoff Steel Racing) completed the top 10 and was the top BMW runner, helped by WSR's Rob Collard colliding with Liam Griffin's Motorbase Performance Focus on one of the warm-up laps.

Results - 24 laps:

Pos  Driver           Team/Car                Time/Gap
 1.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet             20m31.736s
 2.  James Nash       Triple 8 Vauxhall       + 0.709s
 3.  Tom Chilton      Arena Ford              + 4.318s
 4.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford          + 4.746s
 5.  Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet              + 13.078s
 6.  Gordon Shedden   Honda                  + 14.663s
 7.  Paul O'Neill     Tech-Speed Chevrolet   + 15.260s
 8.  Tony Gilham      Triple 8 Vauxhall      + 16.259s
 9.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Vauxhall      + 21.946s
10.  Dave Newsham     Geoff Steel BMW        + 23.508s
11.  Andy Neate       Arena Ford             + 24.798s
12.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW                + 26.706s
13.  Tom Onslow-Cole  AmD Volkswagen         + 28.240s
14.  John George      Tech-Speed Chevrolet     + 1 lap
15.  Chris James      ES Chevrolet             + 1 lap
16.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Vauxhall        + 1 lap
17.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW                 + 2 laps

Retirements:

     Tom Boardman     Special Tuning SEAT      22 laps
     Tony Hughes      Speedworks Toyota        15 laps
     Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota           13 laps
     Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford            0 laps
     Matt Neal        Honda                     0 laps