Jason Plato expecting tough fight, but relieved after penalty overturned

Triple Eight’s Jason Plato will start third on the grid for the first race of the day on Sunday, but admits he’s struggling with the handling of his MG6 with the penalty ballast at the Rockingham speedway circuit. The two-time champion was however relieved that a penalty issued earlier in the day which would have seen him start from the back of the grid, was overturned by the MSA stewards, which allows him to take up his qualifying position on Sunday.

Plato was just under half a second behind team-mate Sam Tordoff in qualifying, although Plato carries an extra 27kg of success ballast this weekend. Tordoff and Plato were placed first and second throughout much of the session, but a late improvement by West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington saw the current points leader snatch second by just a hundredth of a second.

“In all honesty, I’m not 100% happy with the feeling I’ve got in the car, I’m fighting it a bit, and it’s a struggle to do the lap time,” said Plato to TouringCarTimes. “I just haven’t got the right sort of feeling in the car, and that’s about two-tenths or something like that. Weight corrected, Sam’s done a better job than me today, he’s a tenth quicker. I just can’t get the car fluid and I think a lot of the front-wheel drive cars with a bit of a weight in are feeling the same thing.

“I’m a bit frustrated to lose P2, but ultimately it makes no difference, as Colin would pass me into the first corner if I was P2 or not”, he added, referring to the usual starting advantage of the rear-wheel drive BMW 125is.

“This circuit is very hard on front-wheel drive cars with front tyre degradation, all of us will suffer, the BMW will get better as the race goes on, so it’s all about managing when we go off the cliff. At the moment I’m not feeling overly confident that we’ve got the magic spanner in the toolbox. Then again, all the other front-wheel drive cars will have similar sorts of issues to us, I don’t think Honda are feeling the vibe either, so I expect tough races tomorrow, but I expect Colin will walk the first two.”

On whether it’s worth opting for an alternative strategy with the Dunlop soft tyres, which happened two weeks’ ago at Knockhill when the majority of the field made the unusual step of running the soft tyres in the second race of the day, Plato explains the logic of why all of the teams often choose to run the untested soft tyre in the final race.

“I think if you genuinely believe you’re going to be on the front two rows, you have to go race three, unless you know something, but even then that knowing something is only a guess as you’re not allowed to run the soft tyres until the race,” he explained.

“If you believe you’re going to be in the front two rows, it’s too much of a risk, because if it doesn’t work, and because the finishing position in race one almost defines your destiny for the rest of the day, it’s too much of a risk to run it in race one, hence we all run it in race three. So I think it’s too risky, unless you know you’re not going to qualify so well, like Matt (Neal) did at Knockhill, which actually was a good call, but for us, as we generally have good qualifying pace, it’s too risky.”

Plato was also investigated by the stewards earlier in the day about the collision that took place with Rob Austin in the third race at Knockhill. The TOCA officials chose that the incident was worthy of a reprimand, and as that was his third offence of the season, that earned him an automatic demotion to the back of the grid, but Triple Eight instantly appealed and it was overturned just over an hour later.

“I’m a bit mystified why we’re even talking about it,” said Plato. “I braked at exactly the same place as the lap before. On the lap of the incident I was much closer, Rob (Austin) took a really strange line and then turned in and tried to occupy a bit of territory I was on, it wasn’t me going in too quickly and running into him, not at all.”

“Rob openly admitted to me and the Clerk of the Course that he didn’t see me, so I don’t understand. I’m a bit mystified, but relieved the stewards took the sensible course of action, as otherwise that would have wrecked my championship.”

Although the penalty has been overturned, this still means that should the 2001 and 2010 champion earn a further warning or any grid penalty this weekend or in the final two weekends, he will be sent to the back of the grid at the following race.