Jason Plato to test Sutton Subaru in bid to solve issues

Jason Plato is to test Ash Sutton’s race winning Subaru Levorg next week in an attempt to get to the bottom of the ongoing issues with his own Team BMR-run car.

Although a boost increase handed out by TOCA as part of an evaluation of the Mountune-developed engines on the grid saw Plato move forwards up the grid, the former champion failed to break into the top ten at Oulton Park – taking a best finish of eleventh spot.

By contrast, Sutton again found himself right at the sharp end of the grid, and stormed to a first victory of the year for the team in the second race of the weekend.

Part of Plato’s ongoing issues have been put down to damage sustained in his accident at Brands Hatch, which has affected the way in which the Levorg has responded to changes.

In an attempt to solve the problem, Plato will now drive Sutton’s car in testing to try and work out a solution.

“I’ll be driving Ash’s car next Tuesday to help us find out what’s what,” he wrote in his Adrian Flux blog. “We need a day away with the two cars to work it out. There’s progress on my car at times but we’re still trying to fathom what exactly is wrong with it. At the moment it still won’t do what we want it to do.

“Mine is not responding in the same way as the other cars – we made changes on the other cars and got the same reaction from each, but made the same changes on my car and there was no reaction, so something’s not working.

“Ash drove mine before the accident and said ‘I want exactly what he’s got!’. Fingers crossed we will have a good test next Tuesday and we will find out what the issue is, and if we can resolve it we should be back at the sharp end.”

Plato added that despite his own problems, TOCA’s engine evaluation had proven to be beneficial.

“The organisers gave us increased boost on Saturday morning and then increased it a little further on Sunday morning and it made a big difference,” he said. “Big thanks to TOCA for measuring the on-track performance of our engines and giving us a little more power. We’re still a little bit down on power but a lot closer than we were, and we’re making progress.

“The car still can’t quite do what a Honda and a BMW can do because it hasn’t got the same power.”