Jason Plato gracious in defeat to rival Gordon Shedden

Jason Plato was gracious in defeat to title rival Gordon Shedden at Brands Hatch – and said a more powerful engine was at the top of Team BMR’s shopping list to improve their lot in 2016.

Plato dominated the final race of the season and for long periods was in position to take a third crown, but Honda Yuasa Racing’s Shedden climbed his way up the order to take fourth and pip Plato by four points in the final reckoning.

Plato reflected on the performance of his rival and the issues he has faced when assessing the outcome of the season.

“Gordon’s driven brilliantly this year, especially with maximum ballast on board. He’s rescued weekends and is a thoroughly deserving champion, full stop,” said Plato to TouringCarTimes.

“We had too many bits of bad luck this year, to be honest. OK, you could turn around and say Gordon had a shit Snetterton but we’ve had punctures, and not from getting involved in any accidents.”

Plato, who ended the year as the most winningest driver with five victories, said changing from the stock TOCA/Swindon unit was a possibility for next season.

“We’ve got a great chassis, great engineers but we need a bigger engine. I think that’s clear – the TOCA engine isn’t powerful enough.

“It will have to [be looked at by TOCA], or maybe we will go another way. We won’t be using that again, because it’s not good enough.”

The tensions which many expected to see at the BTCC’s ‘superteam’ hadn’t surfaced all year until Brands Hatch, with Plato openly criticising team-mate Aron Smith in a live TV interview after race two.

Despite this, Plato reflected in glowing terms on his first year with Warren Scott’s outfit.

He said: “I’m very pleased with what we’ve managed to do with this team – we’re a force to be reckoned with and OK we didn’t win it this year, but we could have done and should have done.

“But I’m pleased with my performance this year, and the performance of the team.

“At the top we’ve got the best engineers, the best designers – the people are very experienced, and it’s a people game. You put the right people in any business, you get results.”