Jason Plato has taken his second Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race win of the day for MG KX Momentum Racing – and now has eighty victories to his name.
Championship leader Andrew Jordan fought hard throughout the race on the strong soft option tyre – having started sixth – and made up places to soon be on Plato’s tail. He took the race lead shortly before a close battle broke out between the pair, leading the Pirtek racer having to settle for second.
Aron Smith – who was also running on the soft tyre – had a fantastic race for Airwaves Racing to take third place, whilst Sam Tordoff and Colin Turkington had to settle for fourth and fifth respectively.
Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden did what they could in their Honda Yuasa Racing Civics, and came home seventh and eighth, whilst Dave Newsham, Dan Welch and Mat Jackson rounded out the top ten.
Like race one, the safety car was called out on track during the opening stages of the race. Contact between Frank Wrathall, Rob Austin and Tom Onslow-Cole saw the Airwaves Focus of Onslow-Cole crabbing back to the pits whilst Austin’s Audi and a badly damaged Toyota of Wrathall was recovered by the marshals.
Also in the opening stages, Lea Wood was tapped at the rear and sent into a spin at Becketts, luckily missing the Armco barriers as he made his way back onto the circuit.
Having made contact with Sam Tordoff while making up places, Rob Collard was forced into the pit lane with engine issues. The BMW did make its way back out on track, however had to pull over and retire from the race. Adam Morgan also had to retire from the race with a driveshaft issue in his Cicely Racing Toyota.
Aiden Moffat had a clean race and scored his first championship points in just his fifth career BTCC race.
Matt Neal was drawn to start the third reverse grid race from pole position, which gets underway at 17:15.
Race Classification:
1) Jason Plato
2) Andrew Jordan
3) Aron Smith
4) Sam Tordoff
5) Colin Turkington
6) Matt Neal
7) Gordon Shedden
8) Dave Newsham
9) Dan Welch
10) Mat Jackson
11) Howard Fuller
12) Will Bratt
13) Nick Foster
14) Aiden Moffat
15) Jack Goff
Fastest Lap: Andrew Jordan – Lap 8 – 59.056 By Nikki Thompson – Photos by Marc Waller
