Jason Plato has won the second of today’s three HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship races at the Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire.
Oxford driver Plato held off a closing Fabrizio Giovanardi for his third win of the season. Giovanardi’s second place has moved him to within seven points of championship leader Colin Turkington who finished the race in fourth position.
Third was Plato’s Racing Silverline Chevrolet team-mate Mat Jackson who started the race from pole position after winning the day’s first race. He led the opening stages but, with his car carrying the maximum success ballast of 45kgs, he seemed to struggle for outright pace and was powerless to stop Plato and Giovanardi moving past soon after mid-distance. Last year’s series runner-up Jackson, though, has now moved up to fifth in the Drivers’ championship – a fantastic leap considering he was down in 11th just two rounds ago.
Much of race two’s result depended on who was able to tame a track surface made perilously slippery by persistent drizzle from half-way on. Giovanardi, a proven master in such conditions, used the situation to his advantage and having been held back in fifth spot early on he suddenly came to life, striding up to the back of Plato’s Chevrolet on the final lap.
Turkington, sensing his Team RAC BMW was no match for its front-wheel-drive rivals on a damp track, wisely cut his pace and ‘cruised’ home an untroubled fourth to maintain his championship lead. But his team-mates Stephen Jelley and Anthony Reid were both out of the points. Jelley had run sixth until losing time saving a wild moment exiting Copse corner. Reid, meanwhile, had started from the rear of the grid after crashing out of race one.
Giving Team Aon’s Ford Focus ST best-ever result in fifth was Tom Chilton – the car revelling in the tricky conditions just as it had in damp free practice at Knockhill two weeks previously. Next up, following much scrapping, were VXR’s Andrew Jordan, Airwaves BMW’s Jonathan Adam and, scoring his first points in only his second BTCC race, former F1 star Johnny Herbert in Team Dynamics’ Honda Civic.
Ninth, having been almost spun round early on in a collision with Giovanardi, was Airwaves’ Robert Collard who, as he tried to make up places, inadvertently sent Giovanardi’s team-mate Matt Neal spinning off the track at Brooklands corner. Neal, clearly in difficulties with his Vectra, went off twice more after that… again at Brooklands and then for good at the Becketts hairpin. He may remain fourth in the Drivers’ standings, but his title hopes are now realistically well and truly over.
Joining Neal in retirement was RML Chevrolet driver James Nash – he had lay fifth but on the very last lap he span out of the race as he fought to hold the spot from Chilton.
Completing the top ten was Paul O’Neill in his sunshine.co.uk Honda Integra.
