Submitted on September 3rd 2012 12:59 by Jodie Chalcraft.

Jason Plato’s championship charge took a huge knock at Knockhill last Sunday which saw him finish only one of the three races during round seven of the 2012 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

Plato qualified on pole for race one after a wet qualifying lap with the fast starting BMW of Rob Collard alongside him. Collard got a great start and led comfortably into turn one. Plato slotted in behind him but was being persued by the Ford of Aron Smith. The Ford looked much quicker than the MG and on lap 2 contact from behind by Smith sent the MG6 spinning into the gravel which left Plato with a DNF and zero points. Smith was later given a fine and penalty points on his licence for the move by the stewards although the race result remained un-changed.

Both MG’s started from the back of the grid for race two after both retiring from race one. Although Plato made some progress through the field he wasn’t happy with the set-up of his car and he failed to finish in the top 10. This meant he couldn’t take advantage of the reverse grid and would start the last race in eleventh place.
It wasn’t Plato’s day as race three went from bad to worse for the MG KX Momentum Racing’s driver. On the out lap technical problems with the MG returned and Plato was forced to retire to the pits and didn’t make the start resulting in another DNF.

Plato said of his day “I was optimistic for today following our pole yesterday, but being removed from race one by the Ford set the tone for the day and I guess it’s never a great day when your best result is an 11th. The technical issue restricted my progress in race two and stopped it all together in race three. Rockingham has to go better.”

Plato now sits third in the championship with 251 points, 36 points behind the leader Honda Yuasa Racing’s Matt Neal going into the next round at Rockingham on the 22nd-23rd September which can be seen live on ITV4.

Photo Credit: Michael Booth