Brands Hatch pole position for ‘title outsider’ Plato

Jason Plato has taken pole position – and with it a valuable point – for the first of tomorrow’s (Sunday) three Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship rounds at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent. Meanwhile, Matt Neal did his hopes of a second consecutive Drivers’ title no harm at all with the third fastest time.

On his final qualifying lap, Oxford-based Plato set pole position in a time of 49.368s in his SEAT Leon to pip team-mate Darren Turner, from Banbury, by 0.007s. It is Plato’s third pole in a row and also the third successive 1-2 in qualifying for the SEAT team.

Qualifying third in a time of 49.513s was Team Halfords Honda driver Neal, from Droitwich, who this weekend is on the verge of a second straight BTCC title. Northern Irishman Colin Turkington, second in the standings to Neal, was fifth fastest in his Team RAC MG. Splitting them in fourth was Neal’s team-mate Gordon Shedden.

Turkington trails Neal by 53 points with Plato now just two further behind. If Neal maintains that gap in tomorrow’s three races then he will provisionally be champion as a maximum of only 52 points will be available from the season finale at Silverstone on 15 October. Shedden, meanwhile, is targeting second position in the championship ahead of Turkington and Plato – Neal is out of his reach.

Plato and Turner will tomorrow be chiefly focusing on securing SEAT its first BTCC Manufacturers’ title – the Spanish make currently holds a commanding lead over Vauxhall which has held the crown since 2001. Plato said: “I know we’ll have great race pace tomorrow and I’d say the Manufacturers’ title is coming to SEAT. Realistically, the Drivers’ title is beyond me, so a personal target would be to end the season with the most wins. I’m on six and Matt is on seven so that would still be very satisfying.”

Neal’s qualifying performance was the true mark of a great – his car is carrying maximum success ballast, an extra 45kgs, due to his leading the championship. The Droitwich driver said: “I’m delighted with that as I thought the weight would affect my car more than that. Looking ahead tomorrow, I’m going out to win. If I’m going to win the championship I want to win it in style.”

Turkington was content with fifth, considering a power-steering problem on his car had cost him valuable track time in the two earlier practice sessions. The 24-year-old from Portadown added: “I’m pleased after what happened this morning. My car’s set-up still isn’t perfect, but I’ve now at least put myself up at the sharp end with my main rivals and that’s very important.”

Turkington’s team-mate Robert Collard qualified sixth fastest ahead of Team Halfords’ Gareth Howell, the Beckenham driver hoping to star in front of his home crowd. Vauxhall team-mates Tom Chilton and Fabrizio Giovanardi and Mike Jordan, in his Team Eurotech Racing with John Guest Honda, completed the top ten.

Making his return to the BTCC, diabetic Paul O’Neill – ironically racing on the sugar beet-based fuel bio-ethanol – qualified 15th in the Thurlby Motors with Tech-Speed team’s Astra Coupé. Chris Stockton was the fastest of four drivers making their BTCC debuts this weekend and who have pushed the grid size up to 24. He qualifying an impressive 16th overall in the BTC Racing team’s Lexus IS200.

Source: www.btcc.net