Jason Plato: “I hope Colin Turkington comes to play”

Triple Eight’s Jason Plato says he hopes title rival Colin Turkington “comes to play” on raceday at Silverstone, after qualifying just ahead of the championship leader on pole position.

Plato, who now trails Turkington by 54 points after taking the point for pole, needs to prevent the West Surrey Racing driver from extending his lead by 12 points or more to take the fight to the final meeting at Brands Hatch.

And speaking after qualifying, Plato said the 2009 champion has some “difficult decisions” to make ahead of the first race tomorrow.

He said: “I think we won’t be leading into the first corner, but we have some chances to win races here this weekend; whether Colin can disappear into the distance or not will dictate whether I have a chance of winning or not. Second or third don’t really mean anything to me. Second is the first loser, and it doesn’t generate any more money, any more bragging rights.

“Colin, if he gets involved with me has a lot to lose. He has some difficult decisions to make overnight. It will be interesting to see if he wants to fight tomorrow, I hope he comes to play because it will make for good races.”

Assessing his pole lap, the 2001 and 2010 champion added:”I don’t know how many laps I did in 58.6s, quite a lot I think, but I just managed to get everything right and overall I was happy with the performance today. The car isn’t perfect, we’ve still got a few things to sort out, but I think everyone will say that today. I think there’s another tenth to be found if we can dial out the understeer, but the key thing is we’re at the sharp end of the grid.

“At Silverstone you need a car that has good slow corner front grip. There are two really crucial corners, Becketts and Luffield which lead onto big straights, so stability in the fast stuff is required, and you also need a car with good aero.

“If you look at the Volkswagens, they’re always the quickest in the speed traps; that’s not because they have a quick engine, but because the car is really slippery and has a nicely raked windscreen and rear window. We’re kind of a similar shape, and we’re just above mid in the speed traps, but crucially, good in the corners.”

Team-mate Sam Tordoff says he has “gambled” on the soft tyre for the first race tomorrow after qualifying third.

He said: “We got pretty close to the front today, but it was a shame not to get a third consecutive pole. We’ve had a progressive day and got the car back to where we wanted it to be.

“The car was faultless today, really good, and to lose out by a hundredth of a second, that’s just the way it is sometimes. I’ve got no ballast where as Jason and Colin are carrying a lot of weight. I’ve got to take my chances where I can and I think the day might pan out okay.

“The soft tyre is a bit of a gamble, but it should pay dividends through the rest of the day. I don’t think tyre wear will be an issue and by using the soft tyre in race one, the day should evolve for us.”