Jason Plato celebrates “epic” Subaru journey with first podium

Jason Plato dedicated his first podium in the new Subaru Levorg to his team, after saluting the “epic journey” which has led to this point.

Team BMR’s Plato finished third in the first race at Oulton Park, after coming out on top in a fierce battle with Team Dynamics’ Gordon Shedden in the Honda Civic Type-R.

Plato eventually passed the reigning champion into Old Hall on lap 13 to make it two Levorgs on the podium, with Colin Turkington on the top step.

It has been well documented how Plato and engineer Carl Faux had been working on the Subaru project for some time before it bore fruit, which left the double champion in reflective mood after the first race.

“This has been five years in the thinking and the making,” said Plato. While I’m really chuffed for everyone in the team and really chuffed for Colin, of course I wanted to be the one who won the first race. But hey – there’s race two to come, and I’m feeling a bit feisty!

“What an epic journey this has been. We have got something really special. The amount of effort that has gone into building these cars was a silly effort, like I have never seen before.

“It’s not a big team, like a Williams with a big design office or manufacturing department. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of engineering I have seen in a touring car. This is for them.”

Assessing his performance in the race, Plato added: “We are back in the game. We’re not 100 per cent there yet but the basics of the car are very good. We were good on the soft tyre with not a lot of degradation.

“It’s the first time I’ve run in traffic and we were a bit aero-deficient, with a bit too much understeer when I was close to cars, but once we got past Gordon it came back to me a bit.

“There was absolutely no way on earth that Scotsman was going to get the last place on the podium.”