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Triple Eight celebrate Bathurst pole and front row at Brands

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Triple Eight Race Engineering have swept the front row at Brands Hatch for the final round of this year’s British Touring Car Championship, adding to the team’s pole position secured at the Bathurst 1000km yesterday by Jamie Whincup and Paul Dumbrell.

Jason Plato, driving the MG for Triple Eight’s UK arm, adds one point to his tally with pole and is now 48 points behind championship leader Andrew Jordan, with 66 points remaining. As a result, the two-time champion has an outside shot at a third title this weekend, but it’s something that Plato and the team aren’t focussing on.

“You get pole position and all of a sudden people start talking about the title, and we’ve stopped talking about the title for about six weeks,” said team principal Ian Harrison to TouringCarTimes. “We’re just taking it a race at a time, as there’s too many things that can get in the mix and influence what happens.

“The front row’s really good, I have to say I think Sam (Tordoff) did a bloody great job with second, the boy’s really showing his mettle, as is Jamie Whincup, who got his first Bathurst pole, so the boys will have a good run, but it’s a long way. It’s a long race over there, and lots can happen, and though these are short races, (in these) a lot usually does happen.”

Whincup heads into tomorrow’s Bathurst 1000km chasing his fourth win at Mount Panorama, and his first without Craig Lowndes sharing the car with him. Whilst the V8 Supercars Championship has an event which stands apart from the other races on the calendar, Triple Eight’s team principal believes the BTCC should look at adding something with a little difference to its calendar.

“I think there’s a difference between V8 Supercars and this, because they have got that premier event. If you lose the championship but win Bathurst you can almost stand it.

“We should have a BTCC race at Spa, or Zandvoort. That should be our blue ribbon event. We were at Zandvoort last month for the GTs, it’s a great track, and it’d be great for these cars. Why couldn’t we go to Zandvoort and do a race and do something different? Everybody’s fed up of going to the same races over and over again.”