Jason Plato holds off Andrew Jordan for second Silverstone win
Triple Eight MG’s Jason Plato doubled up in the second race at Silverstone, holding off championship leader Andrew Jordan in a thrilling battle between the pair.
Plato led every lap of the race with maximum ballast on the hard tyre, holding off Jordan’s soft tyre-shod Eurotech Racing Honda Civic, and the charging Aron Smith, who made it three for the lead in the closing stages.
Smith, who was also on the soft tyre in his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus, slashed the gap to the leading pair in the final laps, but the status quo was maintained.
It was another safety car-affected race after a multi-car accident on lap one.
After the restart, Jordan passed Matt Neal into Becketts on lap seven, then took advantage when Sam Tordoff passed Colin Turkington across the stripe on lap nine, overtaking the BMW in an opportunistic move into Copse.
Jordan then outdragged Tordoff out of Copse on lap 11 to move up to second, where he stayed thanks to Plato’s defensive masterclass.
He then caught Plato quickly and divebombed him into Becketts on lap 20 and led into Brooklands, but Plato went back up the inside into Luffield and maintained the lead as the pair crossed the stripe side-by-side.
Plato then defended at a key point exiting Copse on each lap to take a masterful win, with just four tenths of a second covering the top three.
It was a vital race in Jordan’s championship bid, as he took fastest lap and extended his gap to 38 points, on a track where he expected to struggle.
Plato’s team-mate Tordoff was fourth ahead of West Surrey Racing’s Turkington, who has moved up into second in the standings. The 2009 champion made a bid to take the lead from Plato on the opening lap, but had to tuck in behind, and started to slip back.
Honda Racing Team duo Neal and Gordon Shedden were sixth and seventh, with Dave Newsham, Dan Welch and Mat Jackson rounding out the top 10.
Neal held off a number of cars in a forceful defensive drive, and has been rewarded with the reverse grid pole for the final race.
Liam Griffin had looked set for Jack Sears Trophy honours before he pulled into the pits on the penultimate lap in his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus. This again handed the win to JWT Performance’s Lea Wood, in 16th overall.
The safety car again made an early appearance after an opening lap clash at Becketts involving Rob Austin, Frank Wrathall and Tom Onslow-Cole.
Austin’s Audi A4 and Wrathall’s Toyota Avensis retired in the gravel trap, while Onslow-Cole dragged his crabbing Ford Focus back to the pits.
Wood and Warren Scott also made contact, dropping the Vectra driver to the tail of the field.
Rob Collard, who appeared to have an issue with his West Surrey Racing BMW 125i on the parade lap, pitted on lap two and rejoined, but stopped out on track at the end of Wellington Straight on lap five.
The third and final race is at 17:17 BST.
