Jason Plato: “The processor was working hard”

Jason Plato enjoyed his race-long battle with Rob Collard en route to his second win of 2015, which saw the two nose to tail for much of the 16 lap race.

The Team BMR driver took to the top of the field on the second lap after Collard got the jump on the pole-sitter from second on the grid, from then on Plato held back the West Surrey Racing BMW, with Collard closing through the chicane up towards Church, before the Volkswagen would pull out a gap on the run back towards the chicane.

“That was great, a really great race,” said Plato. “The mental processor was working hard, both for me and Rob. It was a great cat and mouse game. There were areas where his package was stronger and areas where my was stronger. And of course, the levels of those differences change throughout the race when the tyre degradation comes in. Managing the differences on how both types of cars degrade throughout the race requires a bit of thought and it was really good, I enjoyed it.”

The Volkswagen had struggled with keeping its tyres performing at the top throughout the weekend, with team-mate Aron Smith suffering a puncture in race one, and Plato says that you really have to be smart in order to survive a race around the Thruxton tarmac.

“You can’t go anywhere near the kerbs, you have to stay off all the kerbs,” he explained. “Even then you’ve got to look after the tyres in your hand. You’ve got to feel in the earlier laps when the pressures are low, you’ve got to almost feel the defamation in the tyre in your hands and feel “that’s too much” and drive to the limit of what damage you think you’re doing because every lap we damage the tyre, that’s what happens here.

“At the end of the race you want the tyres to be absolutely finished. You can make them fall apart in three laps if you don’t drive them right. You’re not driving fast to keep the bloke behind, it’s not about that round here, it’s about driving fast enough to keep the tyres in one piece, if that means you allow pressure to mount, you have to allow pressure to mount.”

Plato will start the third race from eighth on the grid after fellow Fifth Gear presenter Tiff Needell did the grid draw for ITV4, and the two-time BTCC champion is now setting his sights on a top five to round off his Thruxton weekend.

“I’ll be pleased at the end of race three if we get a good finish, that’ll be a relief because you never know around here,” said Plato. “Its so very hard on tyres, you can pick up someone else’s debris from there tyres letting go which can damage yours, it’s one where the driver if you’ve had a good weekend is a nice thing. If we can get top five I’ll be pleased with that.”