Jason Plato closes in on Honda with dominant win

Jason Plato won the first race at Brands Hatch whilst both Hondas drop out of the points with punctures. Plato now closes to within just six points of the Honda pair in the championship standings.

Only 28 cars took the start after an electrical problem for Andrew Jordan’s Eurotech Vauxhall saw him not even leave the pits to form up on his grid slot of second place.

Alex MacDowall took advantage of the gap to launch into second at the start in the other Chevrolet Cruze, with James Nash falling behind the fast starting Honda Civic of Matt Neal to fourth.

Things were soon to get even worse for the Eurotech Racing team as Jeff Smith’s car also retired on lap five.

On lap seven, Gordon Shedden, whilst battling Mat Jackson for fifth place went wide after putting a rear wheel on the kerb heading through Graham Hill bend and dropped down the order to ninth, falling behind Paul O’Neill’s Tech-Speed Chevrolet and the two Arena Focuses of Tom Onslow-Cole and Tom Chilton.

Matt Neal then ran into trouble on lap ten, with the Civic picking up a front-left puncture. Nash was held up behind Neal and lost what was now third place to independents’ championship rival Mat Jackson’s Ford Focus ST.

On lap 13, Rob Collard and Frank Wrathall were battling for the final points positions, with the Toyota of Wrathall getting a run on the BMW driver, but Collard fought back, making light contact with the rear of Wrathall’s car, but was enough to spin Wrathall out and break the suspension on the Dynojet Racing car.

Further disaster was to hit the Honda team, as Shedden also picked up a puncture with two laps to go, pitting for a replacement but finishing out of points in 19th, one place behind team-mate Matt Neal.

Alex MacDowall dropped one spot to Mat Jackson on the penultimate lap to finally put an end to Jackson’s run of non-top ten finishes. STR driver Tom Boardman also picked up a puncture on the final lap, elevating Rob Collard to eighth and also giving Nick Foster another top ten finish in the other West Surrey Racing BMW.

Jason Plato’s clean sweep of pole position, leading a lap and setting the fastest lap sees the Chevrolet drive take the maximum possible score, closing to within six points of the two Honda drivers who are still tied on 204 points.

Plato will start on pole position for race two, which starts at 14:15 BST, but will now carry 45kg, an increase of 18kg on race one, whilst Neal and Shedden will start 18th and 19th but with no success ballast.