Qualifying: Plato at the double

Plato's works Vauxhall sat on both pole spots with 10 minutes to go, then set a new second fastest lap time to knock himself off the feature race pole position! Instead, the less consistent Phil Bennett in his Egg Sport Astra Coupe, due to the unorthodox nature of the BTCC qualifying rules, took pole for the feature race because the second time set of his fastest two laps was now quicker than Plato's.

Confused? So were we. But then Bennett redressed the balance by improving his own second fastest lap time and in so doing removed himself from feature race pole, handing it back to Plato!

"Maybe that's something that needs to be looked at for next year," said Plato. "It's very difficult for the mechanics and engineers to keep you informed. But you just have to put in two very quick laps side-by-side, and if you do that it sorts itself out."

Talking of his achievement, he said: "At this crucial stage in the championship every point matters. It was difficult to get the lap just right. 1m41.6s and 7s were easy, but to do a 4 or 5 was very difficult. The car was great though - I'm really pleased with its performance. Last time here we couldn't get it right in qualifying but our race pace was strong. We've applied those theories and changed a few things for qualifying, and everything has worked out."

Title rival Yvan Muller starts the feature race from second and the sprint from third, alternating his grid spots with Bennett. "I was quite happy after practice," said the Frenchman. "Then we found something we thought was wrong at the start of the session, but we should have left it. That's our mistake, but we can change it back."

After his free practice performance, James Thompson, in the second Egg Astra, was a disappointing fourth fastest for both races.

Next up was Steve Soper, upholding Peugeot honour and split from team-mate Dan Eaves by the two evenly matched MG ZS racers. Warren Hughes just nabbed the fastest time overall from team-mate Anthony Reid, the silky-smooth Geordie's driving style in stark contrast to the kerb-hogging Scot.

Thomas Erdos in the Lexus separated the two Alfa Romeos at the back of the BTC Touring field, Tom Ferrier going well in his 147 and not suffering the same amount of understeer as team-mate Tim Harvey.

A typical last minute banzai effort gave Simon Harrison, complete with 60kg of success ballast, pole for the Production class in his HTML Peugeot. "I always felt the car was capable of stringing together a pole lap even with the ballast and it all came together on the last lap," he grinned.

Simon Graves was second in the lead Barwell Honda. "We're within a few hundredths of what we expected," he said. "We could just do with 30bhp more like the Peugeots. It makes a nonsense of the regs that a car with 60kg of ballast is ahead of me. Still, the race will be different."

The youthful trio of Tom Boardman, Gavin Pyper and Mat Jackson were next up, ahead of Harrison's title rivals James Kaye and Roger Moen, both carrying heavy levels of ballast. "It just won't go any faster," said Kaye.

Jason Plato (Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 1m41.456s
Phil Bennett (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 1m41.496s
Yvan Muller (Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 1m41.541s
James Thompson (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 1m41.624s
Steve Soper (Peugeot 406 Coupe) 1m42.393s
Anthony Reid (MG ZS) 1m42.463s
Warren Hughes (MG ZS) 1m42.513s
Dan Eaves (Peugeot 406 Coupe) 1m42.900s
Tom Ferrier (JSM Alfa Romeo 147) 1m43.079s
Thomas Erdos (TMSR Lexus IS200) 1m43.488s
Tim Harvey (JSM Alfa Romeo 147) 1m43.903s

Plato 1m41.537s
Muller 1m41.613s
Bennett 1m41.701s
Thompson 1m41.752s
Soper 1m42.156s
Hughes 1m42.444s
Reid 1m42.540s
Eaves 1m42.587s
Ferrier 1m43.226s
Erdos 1m43.467s
Harvey 1m43.663s


Simon Harrison (HTML Peugeot 306) 1m46.939s
Simon Graves (Barwell Honda Accord) 1m46.954s
Tom Boardman (TBR Peugeot 306) 1m47.252s
Gavin Pyper (GA Janspeed Alfa Romeo 156) 1m47.307s
Mat Jackson (GR Ford Focus) 1m47.412s
James Kaye (Barwell Honda Accord) 1m47.461s