Plato charges to Oulton race two win

Date published : 06 Jun 2010 - 14:20:13

Jason Plato re-took the lead of the British Touring Car Championship by superbly winning the second race of the day at Oulton Park from 10th on the grid.The Chevrolet driver carved his way through the field and kept his head when rain began to fall late in the race to beat Matt Neal's Honda to the flag by just under a second.Tom Onslow-Cole led the field initially from pole position, with the Arena Ford driver being chased by Gordon Shedden's Honda and Rob Collard's WSR BMW.However, contact between Collard and Tom Chilton's Arena Ford at the Island hairpin on the opening lap resulted in the former being spun around and hit by the unsighted Alex MacDowall.This, coupled with a driveshaft failure for Shedden on lap two, promoted Plato to fourth, and he swiftly made it into the podium places by passing Chilton at Island next time round.Two laps later he made a near-identical move on Mat Jackson's Motorbase BMW for second and latched onto the tail of Onslow-Cole, whom he passed for the lead on lap 10, but only after hitting the rear of the Ford and causing significant bodywork damage to the front of his own car.Plato held the lead to the end while Neal, who also made a number of places during the latter stages, passed Jackson and Onslow-Cole.Despite his efforts to close on Plato, he settled for second, a result that dropped him three points behind his rival in the championship.Onslow-Cole finished third ahead of Jackson and the second Motorbase car of Steven Kane, Chilton and James Nash (Triple 8 Vauxhall).Tom Boardman came from 21st on the grid to finish eighth in his Special Tuning UK SEAT while a recovering MacDowall outsprinted David Pinkney for ninth - and pole for the reversed grid final race - out of the final corner of the race.Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Jason Plato Chevrolet 22m22.567s 2. Matt Neal Honda +0.749 3. Tom Onslow-Cole Ford +3.483 4. Mat Jackson BMW +4.921 5. Steven Kane BMW +9.378 6. Tom Chilton Ford +12.016 7. James Nash Vauxhall +12.328 8. Tom Boardman SEAT +13.134 9. Alex MacDowall Chevrolet +37.18410. David Pinkney Vauxhall +37.22711. Lea Wood Honda +37.89912. Matthew Hamilton Honda +38.52213. Arthur Forster BMW +45.65514. Martin Depper BMW +47.41015. Rob Collard BMW +49.28216. Andrew Jordan Vauxhall +1 lap17. Andy Neate BMW +1 lapNot classified John George Honda 13 laps Martin Johnson Vauxhall 13 laps Shaun Hollamby Volkswagen 5 laps Gordon Shedden Honda 2 laps Paul O'Neill Honda 0 laps