Triple Eight pair confident of race pace after Saturday speed

Triple Eight drivers Jason Plato and Sam Tordoff both sang the praises of their MG6 GTs after a productive day at Donington Park saw them qualify first and third.

Plato set a lap record on his way to pole position, despite a mistake on his best lap, while Tordoff was 0.236 behind after conceding he hadn’t pushed to the maximum, as he had expected the track to get faster rather than slower as the session progressed.

There was also an improved showing for the third MG of series rookie Marc Hynes, who will line up 10th and was just 0.585 off Plato.

Plato said: “I didn’t quite nail the lap actually. I made a small mistake at turn one where I lost a tenth, but overall, I’m very pleased with that. The second half of the session was good, but I didn’t really get a lap together, there was a lot of dust from people going off.

“We’ve got a good balance on the car now, it’s much nicer to drive. It’s less snappy and more user friendly. The grip is great, it’s very stretchy and less on a knife-edge.

“Qualifying is so crucial now with the amount of cars on the grid, you’ve got to be at the sharp-end. You need to get a good result in race one and race two, and then let’s see what we can do in race three; that’s got to be the mental attitude I think.”

Tordoff was equally satisfied with his day’s work, after a trying weekend at Brands Hatch, and believes he is in good shape for tomorrow.

He said: “We tried a few things at Brands Hatch that didn’t work, and we had to go back to square one and put things right. And we’ve done that.

“We have had a good Saturday. In FP2 the pace was strong, and we’ve carried that forward to qualifying and delivered again, which is something I was anxious about.

“I thought if I didn’t deliver I’d look like a bit of a muppet, but I got a good solid banker in on the first set of tyres. I didn’t push that hard, I still had a bit left in the tank. But then the track seemed to slow up, and nobody went quicker after that.

“I felt like on a different day, if we’d really pushed on the first set of tyres, we could have been a lot closer to Jason’s time. But I’m happy. P3 is fine, probably better than being P2, and we’re looking good for tomorrow.”