Plato leads MG one-two in wet race

Jason Plato took his 83rd British Touring Car Championship victory in a damp race one at Donington Park.

Plato's MG6 held off the fast-starting WSR BMW of Colin Turkington at the start and led every lap of the race.

Turkington struggled in the early stages and soon lost out to Sam Tordoff's MG and Gordon Shedden's slow-starting Honda Civic Tourer on lap one.

As the MGs drew clear, Turkington picked up pace and repassed Shedden into Redgate on lap six.

He was soon followed by Andrew Jordan's Eurotech Civic, flying despite 45kg of success ballast.

Jordan continued his charge by passing Turkington, with Rob Collard (up from 13th on the grid) following the Honda to move into fourth.

The gap to the MGs was too big and Jordan had to settle for third, but Tordoff stayed with Plato all the way to the flag, finishing just 0.4 seconds behind his more experienced team-mate.

Behind Collard in fourth, a struggling Turkington just held off Shedden on the run to the flag, while Fabrizio Giovanardi came through to seventh after starting on row six.

The 2007 and '08 champion finished ahead of Matt Neal's Honda, which in turn was not far clear of Aron Smith. The BMR VW Passats did not look as strong in the wet as they had in the dry, Smith's team-mate Alain Menu only finishing 13th.

Apart from Collard, Dave Newsham starred. Despite two early offs, the AmD Ford Focus driver came through to be part of a multi-car fight involving Tom Ingram's Speedworks Toyota Avensis and the MG of Marc Hynes to come home 12th.

Rob Austin's Audi was the only car to come in to the pits to switch to slicks. He was the fastest car in the closing stages, but lost too much time making the change to get back into the points.

Originally on Autosport.com