Jason Plato holds on to take victory in his 500th BTCC race

Jason Plato became the 11^th different winner of the 2016 British Touring Car Championship season at Knockhill, winning race one ahead of WSR’s Jack Goff and fellow Subaru racer Colin Turkington.

Plato got off to a clean start and was able to open up a comfortable two-second lead in the first two thirds of the race, initially leading the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota of Ingram in second.

However, Ingram lost out to the BMW of Goff on lap 12, with Goff having been earlier released by his team-mate Sam Tordoff as he was clearly faster.

A late-race safety car intervention came when the Subaru of team owner Warren Scott was turned around by Dan Welch at Scotsman Corner with four laps left.

When the race resumed though Goff didn’t have enough pace to defeat Plato and deny him a remarkable 95^th win in his 500^th BTCC race.

Turkington took the final podium position after a determined drive to pass Ingram on the penultimate lap, having got past the BMW of Tordoff only a couple of laps previously, leaving the new championship leader to settle for fifth.

Motorbase Performance’s Andrew Jordan took sixth after some early race battles with Turkington, ahead of an impressive drive by Power Maxed Racing’s Dave Newsham in seventh, who took the team’s best result of the season on his first outing with the team in 2016.

Honda duo Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden finished in eighth and ninth, with Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin completing the top ten.

It proved to be a disastrous race for Rob Collard, who had entered the Scottish meeting leading the drivers’ championship standings. He struggled to a lowly 17^th place finish with the maximum 75 kg of ballast on board, after losing a pair of positions on the final lap of the race.

Eurotech Racing’s Jeff Smith retired from the race on lap 19 after contact with WIX Racing’s Adam Morgan, who had been running down the order following contact from Neal on the opening lap.

There were also retirements for BKR’s Árón Smith, who had problems with the ECU on his car, and Speedworks’ Matt Simpson, who received a heavy hit from the Toyota of Michael Caine exiting the hairpin on lap nine.

Race two takes place at 14:17 BST (15:17 CEST).

Race result

POS	NO	CL	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME/GAP	BEST	GD
1	99	M	Jason PLATO		Silverline Subaru BMR Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	27	25:30.213	51.990	1
2	31	C	Jack GOFF		Team IHG Rewards Club	BMW 125i M Sport	27	0.503	52.083	4
3	4	M	Colin TURKINGTON		Silverline Subaru BMR Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	27	1.003	51.982	5
4	80		Tom INGRAM		Speedworks Motorsport	Toyota Avensis	27	2.375	52.152	2
5	600	C	Sam TORDOFF		Team JCT600 with GardX	BMW 125i M Sport	27	2.781	52.190	3
6	77		Andrew JORDAN		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus	27	4.034	52.260	6
7	71		David NEWSHAM		Power Maxed Racing	Chevrolet Cruze	27	5.265	52.654	10
8	25	M	Matt NEAL		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	27	7.605	52.612	7
9	52	M	Gordon SHEDDEN		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	27	8.143	52.388	11
10	11		Rob AUSTIN		Handy Motorsport	Toyota Avensis	27	8.357	52.475	9
11	116	M	Ashley SUTTON		MG Racing RCIB Insurance	MG6GT	27	9.206	52.686	13
12	7		Mat JACKSON		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus	27	10.16	52.566	15
13	16		Aiden MOFFAT		Laser Tools Racing	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	27	11.295	52.544	12
14	30		Martin DEPPER		Eurotech Racing	Honda Civic Type R	27	11.346	52.587	16
15	20	M	James COLE		Silverline Subaru BMR Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	27	11.495	52.278	14
16	24		Jake HILL		RCIB Insurance Racing	Toyota Avensis	27	12.307	52.558	19
17	100	C	Rob COLLARD		Team JCT600 with GardX	BMW 125i M Sport	27	12.581	52.548	18
18	66	M	Josh COOK		MG Racing RCIB Insurance	MG6GT	27	13.652	52.891	17
19	12		Mike EPPS		RCIB Insurance Racing	Toyota Avensis	27	14.484	53.114	20
20	53		Hunter ABBOTT		Power Maxed Racing	Chevrolet Cruze	27	14.863	52.967	24
21	17		Dan WELCH		Goodestone Racing	Proton Persona	27	15.114	53.165	26
22	33		Adam MORGAN		WIX Racing	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	27	15.991	52.748	8
23	48		Ollie JACKSON		AmD Tuning	Audi S3	27	16.692	53.285	31
24	88		Michael CAINE		TLC Racing	Toyota Avensis	27	18.868	53.220	27
25	95		Stewart LINES		Maximum Motorsport	Ford Focus	27	19.479	53.618	29
26	38		Mark HOWARD		BKR	Volkswagen CC	27	21.057	53.595	30
27	14		Alex MARTIN		Dextra Racing with Team Parker	Ford Focus	26	1 Lap	53.616	28
R	55		Jeff SMITH		Eurotech Racing	Honda Civic Type R	19	8 Laps	52.746	22
R	39	M	Warren SCOTT		Silverline Subaru BMR Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	17	10 Laps	52.890	21
NC	40		Árón SMITH		BKR	Volkswagen CC	13	14 Laps	53.302	23
R	303		Matt SIMPSON		Speedworks Motorsport	Honda Civic Type R	9	18 Laps	53.188	25

Complete race results