Plato expects though Brands Hatch

Jason Plato fears that the maximum success ballast that his championship leading SEAT Leon will have to carry during qualifying at Brands Hatch could compromise his weekend at the Kent circuit on 18-19 August. Plato says that Brands’ short Indy lay-out – with an undulating, stop-start nature – makes the circuit notoriously hard to succeed on when carrying extra weight.

As the championship leader, his car will be laden with 45kgs in Saturday’s qualifying session and the first of Sunday’s three races in which he needs to score well to keep closest rival Fabrizio Giovanardi at bay.

Giovanardi’s Vauxhall Vectra will also run with ballast – 36kgs due to his second position in the standings – in qualifying and race one. Ballast with then be shifted onto the top five finishers in races one and again in race two.

Plato, who got his 2007 season off to a near perfect start at Brands in April with two wins, said: “We all know that Brands Hatch is a good circuit for the Leon, and we’ll be going there with a lot of confidence – but I don’t think it will be as easy as people might think.

“Since we were there last, all the other teams have done a lot of development work on their cars and they will be a lot stronger this time around and we’ll be starting the race weekend with 45kgs of success ballast, which we didn’t have at the opening race of the season.

“The extra weight will really hurt us around Brands in qualifying and it will be a tough opening race. If you remember back to the third race at Brands at the start of the season, because of the reverse grid, I started from seventh with 45kgs and really struggled to move up, eventually finishing fifth.

“Rather than end the race weekend at Brands like that, this time we’ll be beginning it. That makes a big difference. But we’re very focused on what we have to do and that is to out-score one driver – Fabrizio Giovanardi.

“If we do that, we’ll be scoring important points in the Drivers’, Manufacturers’ and Teams’ tables.”

SEAT won last year’s Manufacturers’ trophy but currently trails Vauxhall in the standing – the UK make is attempting to win back the title it held from 2001-05. In the Teams’ championship, SEAT Sport UK holds a narrow lead over Vauxhall’s VX Racing outfit.