Jason Plato takes pole in wet Knockhill qualifying

Jason Plato has taken his third pole position of the 2012 season at Knockhill in a rain-hit qualifying session, with Rob Collard’s West Surrey BMW qualifying in second and Aron Smith taking a career best third for Motorbase Performance.

The rain started to fall at Knockhill an hour before the qualifying session, stopping just before the green flag which saw the cars venture out onto a very wet track. Honda Racing Team’s Gordon Shedden was immediately on the pace on the Honda, though the Scotsman’s best time of 57.482 was deleted as he’d exceeded the track limits. Shedden later set a time of 57.605 which was good enough for sixth on the grid, but his original time would have put him third.

After Shedden’s time was deleted, Paul O’Neill briefly held pole position in the Speedworks Toyota Avensis, before Jason Plato set a time of 57.521 to snatch the pole spot, which he’d later improve to a time of 57.128.

The red flag came out just before half the session was completed as Robb Holland went off at Scotsman Corner in the Team HARD Honda Civic. As the session resumed, the rain was falling hard again, with Aron Smith and Paul O’Neill able to make improvements before the conditions became too tricky, with Smith improving to third and O’Neill to sixth.

The session was again red flagged with just 56 seconds to go after Andrew Jordan’s Eurotech Honda and Adam Morgan in the other Speedworks Toyota both crashed out.

Tom Onslow-Cole was fourth in the West Surrey Racing BMW with Frank Wrathall fifth in the Dynojet Toyota.

Championship leader Matt Neal qualified in eighth place with Mat Jackson putting the NGTC Ford Focus of Motorbase in the top ten on its second outing in the BTCC.

Race One takes place at 11:45 BST on Sunday.