Jason Plato doubles up at Brands

Jason Plato has followed up his race one win with victory in the second British Touring Car race at Brands Hatch, once again holidng off Andrew Jordan for the win. Gordon Shedden had an impressive drive from 19th on the grid to take third.

Click here for the full Round 2 results.

Plato got a strong start to lead into the first corner, whilst behind him Rob Austin took second from Andrew Jordan after a strong start. A late race safety car phase to remove David Nye’s beached car eliminated a gap of 3 seconds that Plato had built up, but the experienced former champion held on to take the win.

Behind Plato a quartet of Honda’s completed the top five, with Jordan taking his second second-place finish of the day ahead of a hard-charging Shedden. Jordan’s Pirtek team-mate Jeff Smith beat the works Honda of Matt Neal to fourth.

MG’s Sam Tordoff added to his earlier fourth-placed finish by finishing in sixth, ahead of Ciceley Racing’s Adam Morgan in seventh. Morgan will start the final race of the day from pole position, after being randomly selected in the reverse-grid draw.

Both Tordoff and Morgan benefitted late in the race when Dynojet’s Frank Wrathall was pitched into the gravel at Druids on the penultimate lap of the race. Wrathall himself had an eventful race before this, being involved in contact with eBay Motors’ Colin Turkington early in the race, before making contact with Rob Austin whilst battling for third. The incident spun Austin out of the race, with the WIX Racing driver retiring with damage to his right-rear wheel.

The top ten was completed by Airwaves Racing’s Mat Jackson, eBay Motors’ Colin Turkington and Speedworks Motorsport’s Dave Newsham.

Several drivers failed to finish the race due to incident: Ollie Jackson spun into the barriers on the run up to Druids on lap two, whilst David Nye collected the rear of Warren Scott on lap 19, causing a five-lap safety car period.

Árón Smith retired from the race with engine problems, whilst Rob Collard’s technical problems persisted and he retired after five laps.

The final race of the day takes place at 17:05 GMT.