Jason Plato tops shortened second Oulton Park practice

Triple Eight’s Jason Plato topped a shortened second practice session at a wet Oulton Park, which was halted with 10 minutes to go after an off for Jack Clarke.

After a flurry of changes at the top of the times, Plato set his best lap of 1.53.345 with 11 minutes to go, shortly before Motorbase Performance’s Clarke went off at Lodge and caused a red flag.

Behind Plato, the West Surrey Racing pair of Colin Turkington and Rob Collard continued their strong form from the morning session, winding up second and third respectively, ahead of Team BMR’s Alain Menu in his Volkswagen CC.

Plato’s team-mates Sam Tordoff and Marc Hynes were fifth and sixth, with Nick Foster, Andrew Jordan, Aron Smith and Gordon Shedden completing the top 10.

It was a strong showing from the 2001 and 2010 champion, who finished up 0.459s faster than Turkington’s BMW 125i.

The times were close to the morning pace in much wetter conditions, with Turkington, Menu and Plato all taking turns at the top of the times in a busy middle part of the session.

Ollie Jackson didn’t run again in his repaired Welch Motorsport Proton Gen-2, and Hunter Abbott also ran into more problems, completing only four laps in his Audi A4.

United Autosports’ Glynn Geddie also only managed five laps after running into technical issues with his Toyota Avensis.

Clarke’s car went head-on into the tyre barrier at Lodge, but was towed back to the pits with visually very little damage.

Qualifying for the first of tomorrow’s three races takes place at 15:20 BST.