Jason Plato beats Colin Turkington to race one win

Triple Eight’s Jason Plato kept the title battle alive by beating Colin Turkington to the win in the first race at Silverstone, with a mighty pass in the early stages setting him up to take the chequered flag.

West Surrey Racing’s Turkington made his usual strong start and led into Copse, but Plato stayed close to the back of the BMW 125i and perfectly executed a late braking move into Brooklands on lap three.

The gap between Plato, Turkington and Motorbase Performance’s Mat Jackson was less than a second throughout, before the BMW and the Ford were delayed lapping Simon Belcher on the final tour, allowing Plato some breathing space.

Just off the podium, Sam Tordoff hung on to his soft tyres well to finish fourth, with the Team BMR pair of Alain Menu and Aron Smith coming home fifth and sixth, also on the softer rubber.

Rob Collard, Marc Hynes, Rob Austin and Andrew Jordan completed the top 10, with Hynes taking a season’s best finish, and Jordan now mathematically unable to retain his championship title with five races to go.

There were plenty of hard luck stories throughout the field, not least Adam Morgan. The former Ginetta champion divebombed Smith at Becketts on lap 11 to move into the top six, but stopped by the side of the track with a technical problem three laps later.

And there was little to cheer for the works Honda Racing Team, with Gordon Shedden getting involved in a scrape with Tom Ingram en route to 14th, and Matt Neal finishing 21st after picking up a drive-through penalty for exceeding track limits. Fastest lap was some consolation for the three-time BTCC champion.

Neal had been involved in an entertaining battle with Fabrizio Giovanardi in a frantic mid-pack battle, while Nick Foster and Warren Scott had contact on lap six, and Dave Newsham was also given a drive-through for exceeding track limits.

Speedworks Motorsport man Ingram later went off in a cloud of dust at Copse on the penultimate lap.

Back at the front, Plato has narrowed Turkington’s lead to 51 points, with Shedden now 80 behind and almost out of the running, unless he can improve his fortunes later in the day. There are a maximum of 111 points left to play for.