Despite having a maximum success ballast of 75kg on board his Team BMR Volkswagen CC, Jason Plato managed to hold off a charge from Honda Yuasa Racing‘s Gordon Shedden to secure his second Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship victory of the weekend at Oulton Park this afternoon.
Plato got a fantastic start off the line from pole position and was followed into the first corner by Shedden and Andrew Jordan (MG Triple Eight Racing). Rob Collard passed his West Surrey Racing teammate Andy Priaulx to take 4th position.
With 75kg of success ballast, Jason Plato wasn’t able to create the massive gap to P2 that he did in race 1, and for most of the race was around 0.5 seconds clear of Shedden.
A close battle for 7th position started on lap 9, and was between Aron Smith (Team BMR), Adam Morgan (WIX Racing) and Sam Tordoff (WSR). On the way down to Cascades, Tordoff was able to make his was past Morgan, and on the following lap he charged past Smith at the final corner. This pushed the VW wide, allowing Morgan to pass too, with Smith ultimately losing two positions and going down to ninth.
On the final lap, lap 15, Andy Priaulx caught up with Rob Collard at Island hairpin. Priaulx came around on the outside for a pass, but made contact with his teammate, resulting in Collard’s BMW sustaining damage to the suspension. This incident made Priaulx finish in 15th, and Collard 25th, a disappointing result for the WSR crew.
With a lot of momentum out of Druids, Gordon Shedden was able to catch Jason Plato into the final corner. Although he couldn’t pass, he came around on the outside of Plato on the pit straight and finished just 0.093 seconds behind. If the finish line was further down the straight, he would have surely won the race.
The race 2 podium was made up of Plato, Shedden and Jordan. Matt Neal, Tordoff and Morgan are next, followed by Aron Smith, Colin Turkington, Jack Goff and Jeff Smith.
With this win, Plato extends his championship lead to five points over Shedden, with Matt Neal in third just eight behind.
Race three starts at 17:40.
