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British Touring Car Championship
Donington Park - Race 1 Report - 19/4/15

By MJP Media | 19 April 2015

Jason Plato takes an imperious victory in the first race at Donington Park as the bitingly cold weather catches out the soft tyre runners.

Jason Plato lifts the first BTCC winner's trophy of the day

A shockingly cold day at Donington Park after yesterday's sunshine - the track temperature being 25 degrees colder than in qualifying - a lot of the cars on soft tyres were left with a real conundrum. The soft tyres really don't last if pushed hard in the cold however the drivers need a quick lap to help with their grid positions in race 2. Don't forget, of course, that they need to finish race 1 for the fast laps to count. As the cars headed to the grid, both Mike Bushell in the AmDTuning.com Ford Focus and Dan Welch in the Welch Motorsport Proton Gen-2 went straight into the pits and didn't start with the rest of the field.

At the start, pole-sitter Colin Turkington's Team BMR Volkswagen CC was physically barged by team-mate Jason Plato into Redgate corner as Plato took second place from Gordon Shedden in the Honda Yuasa Racing Honda Civic Type R who had a slight misfire off the line. Plato was able to take the lead from Turkington into the chicane on the first lap as he was carrying no success ballast. On lap 2, Shedden was able to pass Turkington for 2nd. Behind Turkington was Andrew Jordan in the MG 888 Racing MG 6GT with Adam Morgan's WIX Racing Mercedes Benz A-Class running 4th until he had a huge moment on lap 3 and slipped down the field.

Jason Plato in his Team BMR Volkswagen CC

Simon Belcher then went off at Clearways amid fear of a safety car period, but was able get out of the gravel and re-join, albeit a lap down. On lap 5, Gordon Shedden posted a 1:09.9 to set a new lap record for Donington Park and a possible pole for race 2. At the halfway stage it was Jason Plato way out in front with a lead of 2.3 seconds over Gordon Shedden in 2nd, Colin Turkington 3rd, Andrew Jordan 4th and Sam Tordoff 5th with a charging Dave Newsham in 6th. This was the stage when the soft tyres were expected to go off and so it proved as Mat Neal started to slip back.

Lap 12 saw a great move by Rob Collard in the JCT600 Racing with GardX BMW 125i M Sport to take both Adam Morgan and Jack Goff at the same corner to take 7th as Morgan's tyres decided they had had enough, although he was still the highest running soft tyre runner in 9th place. With only 2 laps to go, the top 3 still maintained their gap as they started to lap the back markers. In the run up to the line there was one final twist as, with a final lunge, Jack Goff managed to pip Rob Collard for 7th place by 3/100ths of a second after a very committed exit to the last chicane.

Gordon Shedden now leads the Drivers' Championship

As they finished the race it was an impeccable drive that gave Jason Plato the victory by 1.4 seconds with Gordon Shedden 2nd, Colin Turkington 3rd, Andrew Jordan 4th, Sam Tordoff 5th and an excellent 6th place for Dave Newsham in the Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze. Jack Goff was 7th with Rob Collard 8th, Adam Morgan 9th and Rob Austin rounding out the top 10.

As a result of Jason Plato's win and Gordon Shedden's 2nd place, the Drivers' Championship now has Gordon Shedden leading on 50 points with Jack Goff and Colin Turkington equal second on 46 with Plato up to 4t on 39. The grid for race 2, which is determined by fastest laps in race 1 has Gordon Shedden on pole with Colin Turkington for company on the front row and with slightly less success ballast. Behind them it will be Adam Morgan and Jason Plato on row 2, Andrew Jordan and Jack Goff on row 3, Matt Neal and Rob Collard on row 4 and Dave Newsham and Aiden Moffat on row 5 rounding out the top 10.

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