Seat duo Jason Plato and Darren Turner dominated the British Touring Car Championship triple-header at Knockhill winning all three rounds. But while Turner was pleased to win the day’s final race, former champ Plato was left incensed.
Having won the opening two rounds, twice finishing immediately ahead of the Vauxhall of championship leader Fabrizio Giovanardi to cut the deficit in the title race, Plato was dumped out of the final race by the Italian’s Vauxhall team-mate Tom Onslow-Cole.
“I really don’t know what Tom was playing at,” Plato, whose Seat speared into the tyre wall after it was tapped by Onslow-Cole, said. “I got past him fair and square, then he speared me into the tyre wall. He was driving like a prat, which he’s prone to do.
“If, as I suspect, it was foul play, then that’s pretty poor. It’s a shame because the championship doesn’t deserve to be decided like that. Fabrizio and I have always fought hard, but we fight fair.”
While Plato heads to the penultimate round at Silverstone in a fortnight 41 points behind the defending champ, there was frustration for Fifer Gordon Shedden.
The Dalgety Bay racer finished fourth in both openers before his Team Halfords Honda was pitched into the gravel after a coming together by Colin Turkington’s BMW and the Vauxhall of Matt Neal. Shedden though recovered to finish eighth.
“I got very close to finishing on the podium on the first two races,” Shedden explained afterwards, “and I was battling for third again when suddenly I was clattered from the right-hand side and I was scrambling through the gravel. After that it was damage limitation.”
Kirkcaldy’s Jonathan Adam meanwhile won both rounds of the Seat Cupra Championship to close the gap to just five points behind longtime leader Robert Lawson from Richmond. “That’s exactly what I wanted from this weekend,” defending champ Adam, who has now won eight of the last 10 rounds, explained. “I was always confident I could win the two races, but to do its so dominantly is a big boost.”
Adam started both rounds from pole position and literally drove away from Lawson and the rest of the field, winning the opener by 11.348secs before easing towards the end of the second to win by 4.571s.
The 23-year-old also set fastest lap in both rounds, the 54.133s (84.54mph) breaking his own lap record from last year.
And in the Porsche Carrera Cup, while there were wins for Tim Bridgman and Sam Hancock, Kirkcaldy 21-year-old Rory Butcher impressed with two top five finishes on his debut in the hugely competitive series.
“I said before the weekend started that I’d be delighted if I could finish in the top five in at least one of the races, but to do it in both is really great for me,” Butcher, son of Knockhill owner Derek and who set fastest lap times in his class in both races, admitted.
JM