Plato wins race one at Oulton Park

Plato, who started from pole position in his SEAT Leon, made a good getaway to lead into the first corner, and ran away at the front to take his fifth win of the year, breaking the lap record in the process.

Such was his advantage that he was able to back off in the closing stages and allow Tom Chilton, who equalled his best result of the year in second, to reduce the winning margin from four to two seconds by the flag.

The Team Halfords Honda driver ran second for most of the race, but made contact with Darren Turner at Cascades while defending the position from the SEAT driver on lap four.

The incident dropped Turner back to seventh, from which he made up only one place by passing Gordon Shedden a few laps later.

Vauxhall driver Giovanardi picked his way through the confusion to take third at the flag, ahead of Colin Turkington, who muscled his Team RAC BMW past Tom Onslow-Cole's Vauxhall at Lodge on the penultimate lap and won the Independents class in the process.

Onslow-Cole, Turner, and Shedden were next up, but the Scotsman was involved in the only major accident of the race when he and Mike Jordan made contact on the pit straight. The Eurotech Honda was turned into the wall and then sent it spearing across the track and into the tyres on the outside of Old Hall.

Eighth was the Team Air-Cool SEAT of Adam Jones with the two Motorbase BMWs of Steven Kane and Rob Collard showing much better speed than in qualifying as they completed the top ten.

It was a terrible race for Vauxhall's Matt Neal, who started the race second in the championship. First he almost stalled at the start, dropping into the midfield, and then he was given a drive-through penalty for lining up in the wrong position on the grid.

Pos Driver                 Car                 Gap
 1. Jason Plato            SEAT          22:30.779
 2. Tom Chilton            Honda            +1.999
 3. Fabrizio Giovanardi    Vauxhall         +5.958
 4. Colin Turkington       BMW              +6.688
 5. Tom Onslow-Cole        Vauxhall         +8.211
 6. Darren Turner          SEAT             +9.118
 7. Gordon Shedden         Honda           +13.781
 8. Adam Jones             SEAT            +14.231
 9. Steven Kane            BMW             +14.454
10. Rob Collard            BMW             +14.812
11. Stephen Jelley         BMW             +17.721
12. Mat Jackson            BMW             +17.850
13. Andrew Jordan          Honda           +18.594
14. Harry Vaulkhard        Chevrolet       +20.814
15. Matt Neal              Vauxhall        +23.011
16. Michael Doyle          Honda           +23.697
17. John George            Honda           +30.538
18. Martyn Bell            Vauxhall        +46.427

Retirements

    Alan Taylor            Honda           12 laps
    Mike Jordan            Honda           11 laps
    Gareth Howell          SEAT             8 laps
    Jason Hughes           Honda            1 laps
    Chris Stockton         SEAT             1 laps


Fastest lap, Plato 1:28.653 on lap 3