Jason Plato takes championship lead with race two win

Reigning British Touring Car champion Jason Plato has taken the lead of the championship after winning the second race at Brands Hatch, whilst Honda’s drivers limit the damage with Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden driving into the top eight from the back end of the field.

The Chevrolet driver put on another dominant display, leading the whole distance despite running with 45kg of success ballast after winning the first race of the day.

Mat Jackson repeated his second place finish from Round 25, fighting off the rival Ford Focus of Tom Onslow-Cole for the last half of the race, who took his first podium finish of the 2011 season.

By the end of the first lap, Matt Neal was already into the top ten in the Honda Civic after starting 18th with team-mate Gordon Shedden also making good progress through the field.

Neal and Shedden’s final pass after the first lap was to move ahead of Andy Neate’s Ford Focus, and then gained one more position each when Alex MacDowall’s Chevrolet engine spectacularly let go on the Cooper Straight on lap ten, taking him out of fourth place.

Rob Collard was given a mechanical black flag for a loose bumper early in the race, dropping him out of the top ten and down to 22nd place, whilst Chris Swanwick was also given a drive through penalty whilst running in 25th.

On the final lap, Arena Ford driver Tom Chilton passed Triple Eight’s James Nash through Druids to take fifth, dropping the independents’ points leader futher down the order, reducing Nash’s lead to Jackson in the independents’ trophy to just 12 points.

Plato’s perfect score with a lap record setting fastest lap and all laps lead sees him move seven points clear of Matt Neal in the drivers’ championship, with Gordon Shedden one point further back.

The top ten will be reversed for race two which puts West Surrey Racing’s Nick Foster on pole position for the final race, with Andy Neate alongside and the two Hondas on row two.

The final race takes place at 17:05 BST.