Jason Plato took his third win of the season and his 63rd win of his career as he took what would have been one of his easiest wins during race three of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton.

After making a great start, Plato lead from the front in his normally aspirated Chevrolet Cruze and never looked back as he took his first win since race two at Brands Hatch.

Plato made light work of the restart following the safety car period after Tom Chilton hit the barriers and at times had a lead of over 2 seconds over the turbo Ford Focus of Mat Jackson.

Plato will end the day on a high after he failed to finish the first race and could only manage an 8th place finish in the second.

Mat Jackson was another driver to make a brilliant start. Off the line Jackson went from 5th to 2nd and stayed there despite coming under pressure from Boardman in the SEAT Leon during the middle part of the race. Jackson held on to take 2nd and his third podium place finish of the season.

Third place, and the final podium position of the race, went to Tom Boardman. The Lancastrian started the race from pole but after a poor start he dropped down to third. Tom then held on after resisting the pressure from James Nash and took his first podium finish in the BTCC of his career.

Nash just missed out on a podium position but he didn’t go away without trying. Nash pushed the SEAT of Boardman for much of the race but just couldn’t get by.

The two Honda’s of Neal and Shedden came home in 5th and 6th respectively ahead of Andrew Jordan in the Silverline Chevrolet Cruze.

Gilham finished the race in the points and in 9th place just ahead of theVW Golf of Tom Onslow-Cole who took his second points finish of the weekend and his third of the season.

Elsewhere it was misery for Widnes-racer as Paul O’Neill finished the race in 14th. O’Neill was running as high as 10th for much of the race but encountered a problem during the latter parts of the race which dropped him down the order.

To view the race results click here.

Photo Credit: Steve Kilvington

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.