Plato's pole on damp track

This was the perfect result after the former BTCC champion endured a torrid weekend a fortnight ago at Brands Hatch where he was taken out at the start of the first race and effectively eliminated from the meeting.

"That's fantastic," said a delighted Plato, "especially after the weekend we had at Brands Hatch. We had a bit of a plan, but I thought I'd blown it by doing one too many laps with the wets." In fact he started his final lap on slicks, which were by then just up to temperature, just five seconds before the chequered flag came out and that last lap leapfrogged him up onto pole.

All but Edenbridge BMW driver Justin Keen had started the session on wet-pattern Dunlops, but after just one out-lap James Thompson was the first to pull an old touring car trick and put slicks on the front axle and warmed (on the front) wets on the rear. He warmed the fronts for a couple of laps and then bunged in a series of super-quick laps - leading the field by over 1.2s for a while.

Soon all the top guys had put slicks on at least one axle and times started to jumble up and down.

Part two of the Thommo masterplan involved putting the hot slicks from his front axle on the rear wheels and adding new slicks at the front. By then Matt Neal had gone fastest on a mixture of slicks and wets. Yvan Muller tried the same plan as Thommo but didn't like it and went back to the wets/slicks combo.

Predictably the last couple of laps saw the lap timing screen behaving like a fruit machine. Thommo was at the top until that last gasp effort from Plato and still held on to second, though he will now regret his gearbox seizing on his last lap.

The Team Dynamics Hondas of Matt Neal and Dan Eaves (both on the wet/dry tyre mix) filled the second row, with Tom Chilton in the factory Honda and Colin Turkington in the WSR MG next-up.

Muller's plan didn't work and he dropped down the order to eighth, behind Rob Collard, who went off on his final lap on slicks.

Jason Plato SEAT Toledo Cupra 1m34.091s
James Thompson Vauxhall Astra Coupe 1m34.163s
Matt Neal Honda Type-R 1m34.249s
Dan Eaves Honda Type-R 1m34.347s
Tom Chilton Honda Type-R 1m34.438s
Colin Turkington MG ZS 1m34.476s
Rob Collard Vauxhall Astra Coupe 1m34.499s
Yvan Muller Vauxhall Astra Coupe 1m34.515s
James Kaye Honda Civic Type-R 1m35.015s
Luke Hines Vauxhall Astra Coupe 1m35.094s