Jason Plato happy after making the most of a tough weekend

Jason Plato was pleased with the day’s work at Knockhill, taking an 11-point lead away from what was an unfriendly circuit to the Team BMR Volkswagen CC.

Plato sacrificed his first race after the worst qualifying performance of his career to get a decent lap in for the race two grid. The plan worked as he promoted himself to eighth on the grid, before taking sixth and seventh in the final two races.

“Brilliant day at the office,” said Plato. “We only lost five points and that’s after mechanical issues in practice. I qualified 23rd which was the worst ever in my career, which was a pretty poor start. To come away 11 points up front, I’m pleased with that, we get out of this place and go to some proper racing tracks.”

The two-time BTCC champion was not comfortable in his Volkswagen, the tight and twisty nature of the Scottish circuit more suited to the cars of his rivals.

“It’s clear what you need around here is a rear-wheel-drive BMW or a Ford Focus with a lot of boost and no weight,” he explained. “On top of that you need a short wheelbase car and we don’t have that. We’ve got the longest wheelbase on the grid, MG have had the same kind of problems as us, we just don’t work round here. That’s just the way it is. There’s only one circuit out of 10 we don’t work at, the rest we do.

“Imagine doing a slalom course in a Mini and then doing it in a VW Passat, what do you think will happen? Mini’s gonna win. This isn’t a racetrack, it’s a slalom, straight-turn-straight-turn. (A) long wheelbase car doesn’t has that rate of change, just think of a short car and a long car doing a slalom.”

Going in to the final three races, Plato is full of confidence that he can take the championship lead to the end of the season and take his third BTCC title.

“I’m revving,” he said. “We’ve had a great day in terms of where we were, we’re now out of the woods and we’ve done alright.”