Jason Plato claimed his first Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship win of the season after a near lights-to-flag performance in Knockhill first race.
Fresh from claiming the 50th pole position of his BTCC career, Plato made the perfect start to maintain the advantage from his Team BMR stablemate, Ashley Sutton, a lead he would only surrender once.
Sutton moved by his Subaru team-mate heading onto the final lap of the race with the intention of handing over a point for leading a lap, but misjudged the call by 0.053s as it turned out. The two Levorgs swiftly switched places at the hairpin on the final lap of 24, Plato earning his first win having lead for the first time since the Knockhill meeting last season.
Colin Turkington was best of the rest and just 0.9s behind the race winner in his West Surrey Racing BMW 125i, team-mate Rob Collard following him home in fourth place ahead of James Cole in the third Subaru Levorg GT.
Tom Ingram was best of the FWD cars in sixth spot, while Senna Proctor scored the best result of his rookie season in a strong seventh place for Power Maxed Racing.
Adam Morgan‘s Mercedes A-Class was next up in eighth, getting the better of Matt Neal‘s Honda Civic and Dave Newsham‘s BTC Norlin Chevrolet Cruze in an intense battle between the trio.
Gordon Shedden slipped outside the top 10 meanwhile and surrendered the championship lead to Turkington in the process, finishing 11th after a similarly feisty scrap with the MG of Josh Cook.
Stewart Lines was denied the chance to take the start by gearbox problems, while Mat Jackson also failed to make the grid with mechanical problems.
