BTCC Silverstone – Plato comfortably wins first race of the day

Podium (Photo by Marc Waller)Jason Plato has taken the first Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship win of the day at Silverstone, followed by team mate Sam Tordoff to make it a MG KX Momentum Racing 1-2.

The duo comfortably led the pack around, despite Tordoff initially falling down the order after a not so good start in his MG6, however managed to makes places back as the race progressed.


Honda Yuasa Racing’s Matt Neal battled his way through with a broken finger to make it onto the podium having started from ninth – with some close racing with the eBay Motors BMW’s of Rob Collard and Colin Turkington – the Irishman coming across the line eight thousandths of a second behind the Civic in a dramatic photo-finish.

Rob Collard hung on to fifth from Championship leader Andrew Jordan, the Pirtek Racing Honda keeping his position after a push from Adam Morgan who crossed the line close behind.

Airwaves Racing’s Aron Smith and Mat Jackson made their way through the field having started from twelfth and thirteenth respectively, while Dave Newsham rounded out the top ten.

Track Action (Photo by Marc Waller)Track Action (Photo by Marc Waller)Track Action (Photo by Marc Waller)The safety car was called in the race’s early stages after contact midfield between Nick Foster, Will Bratt and Andy Neate.

Foster and Neate ended up stranded in the gravel on the pit straight, whilst Bratt was left to crawl back to the pit lane after his bonnet lid flew up restricting his vision.

Also on the first lap, Dave Newsham had a slight spin on cold tyres which saw him drop down the order having started from his best qualifying position with Speedworks in third.

Track Action (Photo by Marc Waller)Track Action (Photo by Marc Waller)Having already secured the Jack Sears Trophy Championship at Rockingham, Lea Wood took the S2000 win ahead of Liam Griffin, who had to pit his Addison Lee Motorbase Ford with an issue as the race came to its conclusion.

The second race gets underway just after 14:30.

Race Classification:
1) Jason Plato
2) Sam Tordoff
3) Matt Neal
4) Colin Turkington
5) Rob Collard
6) Andrew Jordan
7) Adam Morgan
8) Aron Smith
9) Mat Jackson
10) Dave Newsham  
Fastest lap: Jason Plato – Lap 10 – 58.888  By Nikki Thompson – Photos by Marc Waller

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