Plato wins Donington opener ahead of Shedden and Turkington
Jason Plato took his first race win as a Volkswagen driver, with victory in the fourth round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park.
Plato's team-mate Colin Turkington, starting from pole position, finished third with the Team BMR drivers split on the podium by Gordon Shedden.
Left slightly disappointed that he couldn’t convert his superior practice pace into pole position during qualifying yesterday, Plato wasted little time in reaching the summit in race one at Donington Park.
He immediately blasted by Shedden’s Civic Type R off the line and had enough grunt in his VW CC to be nudging the sister car of Turkington’s into Redgate for the first time. The reigning champion held on for much of the opening lap but eventually had to give way to the ballast-free car of Plato on the run down to the Esses.
Plato scampered away by more than a second before sustaining the gap for the remainder of the race. Attention turned to the battle for second, which resulted in some epic mid-race action. Shedden’s Honda slid slightly wide at Redgate on lap seven and Turkington turned his VW down the inside of the Japanese machine. Turkington only held the position for a split second, however, as Shedden fought back brilliantly by returning the favour on the run to the Craner Curves.
Shedden managed to keep Turkington at a relative arms length until the finish and celebrated second by also setting the fastest lap. The new lap record holder will now start race two from pole position alongside Turkington, with Plato on row two.
Watch race two at 2.25pm and race three at 5.15pm on ITV4 today.