Tom Onslow-Cole has won race two at Donington but Jason Plato starred with third from the back of the grid.

Having passed race one winner Gordon Shedden’s Honda Civic into the chicane shortly after mid-distance, Team Aon Ford driver Onslow-Cole was able to draw clear for his fourth win of the season.

Shedden, his car handicapped with the maximum 45kgs of success ballast, took second but right behind the pair of them at the line was Plato in his Silverline Chevrolet Cruze.

Plato had started from 19th on the grid having crashed out of race one but this result – with a bonus point for the setting a new lap record – means he maintains a handy-sized championship lead.

Onslow-Cole and Shedden are now tied for second in the standings, 15 points behind Plato, while Honda’s Matt Neal, who finished the race in eighth after serving a pit lane drive-through penalty for jumping the start, has dropped to fourth, a further seven points adrift.

Regardless of what happens in race three, all four of these are guaranteed to go BTCC Finals Day at Brands Hatch, Kent on 10 October with a chance of winning the title.

Aon’s Tom Chilton, who finished the race in fourth, is also still in the running but needs a major result in today’s third race to have any realistic chance.

Onslow-Cole said: “That was a very tough race. I got knocked about a bit on the opening lap and then Gordon put up a good fight but it all fell into place. It’s a hugely important result for the championship.”

Plato, whose was driving a hastily-rebuilt Chevrolet after its race one crash, added: “Sixth was my target so third is a big bonus. It’s a funny old game, this sport. But even better is it’s a nice ‘JP’ ‘thank you’ to my team who put the car back together again. I had the pace to win that race but figured third and less success ballast for race three might work out better for us longer-term..."

Fifth, sixth and seventh places were decided at the very last bend between three BMW drivers. Airwaves’ Mat Jackson, who’d held second early on before dropping away, looked to have lost the spot to WSR’s Robert Collard half-way round the final lap but managed to squeeze back past entering the chicane. Collard was forced wide and over the gravel trap, this losing him momentum and enabling Jackson’s team-mate Steven Kane to out-drag him for sixth on the run to the line by just 0.069s.

Neal, recovering from his drive-through, made it up to eighth by passing Andrew Jordan’s Pirtek Vauxhall Vectra into the chicane several laps from home, Jordan having also come through the pack after crashing out with Plato in race one.

Tenth was James Nash in his Triple Eight-run Vauxhall Vectra. He had been following Plato through the field before several moments caused him to drop back. Indeed, several more drivers also enjoyed spells in the top ten during the race before being caught out by incidents, among them Tom Boardman (Special Tuning UK SEAT) and Lea Wood (Central Group Racing Honda) who had been as high as eighth in the opening laps.

Notably, Shaun Hollamby was ecstatic to be 19th – his AmD Milltek racing.com VW Golf had possibly its best showing to date, dicing with bigger teams’ cars before a driver error on the final lap cost him a handful of positions.

The race’s only retirement was Martin Johnson whose Boulevard Vauxhall Astra suffered a misfiring engine.

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