Jason Plato took a lights to flag victory in todays first race in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship in a race in which he never looked troubled.

In comparison to the rest of the race, Plato’s drive was an uneventful affair as he did everything right and took his sixth race win of the season and kept his slim championship hopes alive.

Behind him was fan favourite, Paul O’Neill, who finished where he started despite having a collision with Rob Austin on the opening lap. Austin managed to overtake the Widnes-based racer but the pair touched at Pif-Paf resulting in Austin moving down the order. Much like Plato, O’Neill held his nerve and pulled away from the chasing Honda’s to take his best race result of the season and took his first Independent win of 2011.

The final place on the podium was occupied by Frank Wrathall who came from 5th to finish 3rd in the closing stages of the race after managing to pass the two Honda team-mates of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden.

Matt Neal moved ahead of Gordon Shedden in the championship after he finished the first race of the day in 4th ahead of the BMW of Nick Foster who finished 5th.

Gordon Shedden had a torrid end to his race as he went from 3rd to 6th in just one lap as his tyres wore off and was a mere passenger to the stronger cars of Wrathall, Neal and Foster.

Austin managed to battle back from his earlier spin to finish 8th ahead of Tom Boardman who made up a total of 15 places during race one after he started from 23rd on the grid.

James Nash made good progress in the Independents Championship after finishing 9th overall but more importantly ahead of Mat Jackson and Andrew Jordan who failed to finish the race.

Michael Caine will be delighted with his result in his BTCC debut as he brought home the points for the Airwaves Racing team. Caine, who graduated from the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, ended his debut inside the top ten after starting from 18th on the grid and scored his first BTCC point of his career despite having battles with Tom Chilton throughout the race.

For full classification of the results click here.

For full championship standings click here.

Photo Credit: Chris Gurton

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.