Jason Plato has won the first race of the day here at Donington after passing Shedden and Turkington on the opening lap.
Plato’s BMR VW CC took Shedden’s Honda Civic off the line and immediately got on to the tail of Turkington, a bit too literally as the two made contact going into the first corner! Turkington’s car fish tailed slightly but he stayed ahead. It wasn’t for long though as Plato powered past on the run to Roberts at the end of the lap.
After that Plato just drove away from the rest of the field, helped by the fact that Shedden and Turkington then started battling for second. Shedden had taken it on the first lap but then made an error on lap seven and ran wide at Redgate. Turkington then nosed ahead but Shedden stayed alongside and managed to edge ahead as they entered the Craner curves. They battled for the rest of the race but Turkington’s challenge gradually faded. Shedden set the fastest lap towards the end of the race which gives him the race two pole under the new rules for this year. Plato was only fourth fastest on laptimes, despite having a clear track in front of him for much of the race.
Behind the top three in the race, Andrew Jordan took fourth, he stayed ahead of the rest of the pack but never looked close to challenging the top three. Fifth was the BMW of Sam Tordoff who made up several places from his grid slot. As did sixth placed Dave Newsham in his Power Maxed Chevrolet who came up from tenth. Jack Goff’s MG was seventh just ahead of Rob Collard’s BMW. Collard had made up an incredible eleven places from his nineteenth place start. Adam Morgan was ninth and may be slightly disappointed as he lost places rather than gained them. Rob Austin took tenth on a circuit which has never been good for the Excocet Alcosense Audi. Eleventh was BMR boss Warren Scott who beat IHG Rewards BMW driver Priaulx into twelfth. Priaulx hasn’t looked likely to repeat his front running form that he had at Brands Hatch here at Donington. Josh cook was thirteenth, having run the soft tyres for this race he faded quickly when his tyres went off early in the race. Eurotech duo Jeff Smith and Martin Depper completed the top fifteen in their Honda Civic’s. Other drivers to fade were Tom Ingram and Matt Neal who ended up sixteenth and seventeenth ahead of Aidan Moffat, another soft tyre runner. Hunter Abbot took nineteenth having started back in twenty first. Twenty four cars finished the race with both Welch Proton’s pulling out early on although Welch did remerge several times. Mike Bushell was out on the warm up lap as his car developed a drive shaft issue. He did try to rejoin later in the race put pulled off as soon as he re-joined. Simon Belcher went off and Aron Smith never got going after initially planning on starting from the pitlane.
So the race two grid will see Shedden on pole from Turkington with Adam Morgan in third ahead of Plato. The MG team mates, Jordan and Goff are next up from Neal and Collard. Newsham and Moffat complete the top ten.
Full results for this race are available from TSL timing. By Marc Waller
