Jason Plato takes pole at Oulton Park

Jason Plato has claimed the pole position for tomorrow’s first BTCC race at Oulton Park. The Triple Eight Race Engineering driver’s lap time of 1:26.872 broke the lap record for the circuit.

Plato had an off at Cascades during the qualifying session bringing water and dirt onto the track. This caught out a number of drivers including Jeff Smith, Nick Foster and Tony Hughes who all went off in it. After recovering from the off Plato was able to improve on his earlier time in the dying stages of the session to take pole.

Reigning champion Matt Neal finished in second for Honda Yuasa Racing, 0.077s behind Plato. Rob Collard put in a strong performance in the dying minutes of the session to qualify in third for West Surrey Racing. Andrew Jordan looked set to snatch pole from Plato as the chequered flag fell on the session but was caught out by traffic. The Eurotech Racing driver finished the session in fourth ahead of ahead of fellow NGTC Honda Civic runner Gordon Shedden.

Tom Onslow-Cole, an early timesheet topper in the qualifying session, finished in sixth for West Surrey Racing. Dynojet’s Frank Wrathall set the seventh fastest qualifying time ahead of the Proton of Daniel Welch. Dave Newsham finished in ninth for ES Racing. Mat Jackson’s Ford Focus ST was repaired in time for the session after his FP2 accident, with the Motorbase Performance driver setting the tenth fastest time.

The first race is due to take place at 12:22am on Sunday UK time.