Jason Plato has won the 2010 British Touring Car Championship by taking the victory in race two at Brands Hatch this afternoon. The win also means that he was 60 career victories to his name, equalling the long-standing record held by Andy Rouse.
Matt Neal finished in second position and will still be fighting for second in the championship in the final race of the day, whilst Rob Collard completed the podium.
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Plato took the title with a second lights-to-flag victory of the day. He was given an immediate advantage at the start of the race when Gordon Shedden, who was supposed to start alongside him on the front row, pulled into the pit lane before the start with a driveshaft problem.
It meant that Neal would start closest to Plato, but he himself lost out to Alex MacDowall off the line. MacDowall didn’t hold the position for long though as a tap from Neal sent the Chevrolet driver onto the grass at Druids.
Neal was challenged by the BMW of Rob Collard for most of the race, but Collard was unable to find a way past and in his efforts to keep up with the Honda in front he ran wide on lap 14 at Paddock Hill – effectively ending his challenge for second.
Paul O’Neill took fourth, and second in the independents class, after another strong race. Tom Chilton finished in fifth, improving on his result in the first race, whilst Steven Kane followed him accross the line to take sixth. Kane goes into the final race of the day still in with a shot of the independent drivers championship, in which he is just 6 points behind leader Tom Onslow-Cole.
Onslow-Cole himself had another disastrous race as he once again failed to make the finish. It means the battle for the independent’s championship comes down to Onslow-Cole, starting from 19th in race 3, Chilton and Kane. It is the last championship that remains undecided.
Andrew Jordan finished in seventh and once again got lucky in the reverse grid draw for race three – in which he will start from pole position. Mat Jackson was eighth, James Nash was once again in the points in ninth and Andy Neate took the final point for tenth position – just his fifth points finish of the year.
Alex MacDowall failed to finish the race after contact with Lea Wood into Paddock Hill Bend caused too much damage to his Chevrolet Cruze. Martin Depper also failed to finish the race, managing just 5 laps. James Kaye went out on the opening lap of the race when he made heavy contact with Arthur Forster’s BMW and ended up stuck in the gravel on the exit of Clearways, bringing about the only safety car period of the race.