Plato doubles up in race two

Date published : 08 Aug 2010 - 14:30:46

Jason Plato increased his British Touring Car Championship lead to 24 points over Matt Neal with his second victory of the day in race two at Snetterton.Starting from pole position, the Chevrolet driver was never pressured, despite five early laps behind the safety car and 45kg of success ballast inside his Cruze.He pulled away to win by 2.9 seconds from the Arena Fords of Tom Chilton and Tom Onslow-Cole. It was Plato's fourth win of the year and the 57th of his illustrious career.In what was an unusually processional race, the only significant action involved Mat Jackson's Motorbase BMW.Carrying 36kg of success ballast after his second place in race one, Jackson ran wide at Coram on the sixth lap, and lost positions to both Fords two turns later.He eventually dropped back to fifth, behind his team-mate Steven Kane, who took advantage of another slide wide at Sears on lap 14.Between Kane and Matt Neal, who finished ninth after starting at the back of the grid in his Honda, were Jackson, Andrew Jordan (Eurotech Vauxhall), Rob Collard (WSR BMW) and Gordon Shedden (Honda). All were separated by 2.2s.James Nash completed the top 10 and will start the reversed grid third race from pole position. But the Triple 8 Vauxhall driver was partly responsible for triggering the deployment of the safety car.Nash and Tom Boardman made contact exiting The Esses on the opening lap, the Special Tuning UK SEAT driver being spun backwards across the grass and then being collected by the Tech-Speed Hondas of Paul O'Neill and John George as he cannoned back across the circuit.