Plato takes 50th pole at Knockhill

JASON Plato finally looks to have turned his fortunes around after taking his 50th Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship pole at Knockhill yesterday.

The Newcastle-educated driver put his Adrian Flux Subaru Racing Levorg on the top spot on his last lap in qualifying after a frantic final four minutes, where provisional pole changed hands an incredible 11 times.

The session began in typical Scottish conditions after rain had left the track wet.

Plato’s young team-mate and title challenger Ash Sutton was the first driver to break the 56-second barrier as he shot to the top of the timesheets seven minutes into the session with a lap of 56.517 seconds.

Times stayed around the 56 mark even after a red flag 11 minutes in to remove advertising hoardings from the middle of the track.

But when action was stopped again with just over 10 minutes still to go, track conditions were changing.

As it seemed that the Tarmac may start to dry quickly, most drivers opted to head back out for the restart on slicks.

It took around five minutes to get their tyres up to a decent temperature, and by now the sun was attempting to poke through, and the track was beginning to dry up rapidly.

Team BMW’s Colin Turkington was first to show his hand as he set a quick one, but was quickly deposed by the Pirtek BMW of Andrew Jordon before back up on top.

Times were now tumbling and Plato, Tom Chilton, Mat Jackson and Rob Collard all took turns swapping places at the top and, as the chequered flag came out, it seemed that Sutton had got it.

But Plato was the last man to start a final lap and had managed to get a bit of clear track ahead of him. He pushed hard to cross the line with a 52.579 to give him his 50th pole.

“That’s alright, that. After the horrendous year I’ve been having it’s nice to have conditions which suit us, and it’s good to get a good result,” he said. “It’s still far from great, we still can’t make by car work the way I need it to, but this a step in the right direction.”

“The timing was important but that comes with experience, getting the slicks on early so they had time to heat up and we were probably luck because we were the last car over the line, but it all helps.”

And while he admitted he doubts he can win today, he says he intends to help teammate Sutton who is very much in the championship fight.

“I’m in a good place on the grid, and if my car doesn’t do what I want it to then I want to be able to help out Ash,” he added. Sutton was