Plato takes second pole in a row

Plato's time of 1:27.688 was 0.106 seconds quicker than his teammate Darren Turner as SEAT repeated their front-row lock out of Snetterton two weeks ago. Even more remarkable was that both drivers set their best times in the first five minutes of the session.

Tom Chilton's recent upturn in form continued as he put his Team Halfords Honda third on the grid - his best qualifying performance of the season - and Tom Onslow-Cole will start alongside him for Sunday's opening race as he was the best of the Vauxhall drivers.

Championship leader Fabrizio Giovanardi - who is carrying 45 kilos of success ballast compared to Plato's 27 - was fifth quickest with Gordon Shedden in the second Halfords Honda completing the third row.

Matt Neal and Colin Turkington will start seventh and eighth, while Adam Jones and Andrew Jordan completed the top ten.

Jordan's father and teammate Mike was lying 11th with ten minutes to go, but failed a ride-height test and had all his times eliminated up to that point. He qualified 15th, notably behind the Team KWR MG of Jason Hughes, who did superbly to qualify 12th.

Harry Vaulkhard was ordered into the garage early on after his Robertshaw Racing Chevrolet was deemed to have had outside assistance from marshals after it stopped on the track early on.

And it was also a bad session for Chris Stockton, who brought out the red flags with five minutes to go after suffering a brake failure on his BTC SEAT at Druids and going off into the gravel trap.

Pos Driver                Car        Time         Gap
 1. Jason Plato           SEAT       1:27.688
 2. Darren Turner         SEAT       1:27.855  +0.167
 3. Tom Chilton           Honda      1:28.132  +0.444
 4. Tom Onslow-Cole       Vauxhall   1:28.141  +0.453
 5. Fabrizio Giovanardi   Vauxhall   1:28.161  +0.473
 6. Gordon Shedden        Honda      1:28.250  +0.562
 7. Matt Neal             Vauxhall   1:28.252  +0.564
 8. Colin Turkington      BMW        1:28.435  +0.747
 9. Adam Jones            SEAT       1:28.607  +0.919
10. Andrew Jordan         Honda      1:28.760  +1.072
11. Mat Jackson           BMW        1:28.902  +1.214
12. Stephen Jelley        BMW        1:28.903  +1.215
13. Jason Hughes          Honda      1:29.010  +1.322
14. Harry Vaulkhard       Chevrolet  1:29.114  +1.426
15. Mike Jordan           Honda      1:29.144  +1.456
16. Steven Kane           BMW        1:29.241  +1.553
17. Rob Collard           BMW        1:29.468  +1.780
18. Michael Doyle         Honda      1:29.928  +2.240
19. John George           Honda      1:30.049  +2.361
20. Chris Stockton        SEAT       1:30.377  +2.689
21. Martyn Bell           Vauxhall   1:30.481  +2.793
22. Gareth Howell         SEAT       1:31.240  +3.552
23. Alan Taylor           Honda      1:31.594  +3.906