WINS FOR WSR’S REID & SEAT’S PLATO AT CROFT
WSR MG driver Anthony Reid and SEAT Sport UK’s Jason
Plato were the winners of Croft’s three Green Flag British
Touring Car Championship rounds today, while Vauxhall team-mates
Yvan Muller and James Thompson have left the North Yorkshire
circuit separated by just three points at the top of the table
as the title race heads to Knockhill in Scotland on 8 August.
Reid, the leader of the HarrierZeuros Independents Trophy
for privateer competitors, started the first race from pole
position and took full advantage to lead all the way for his
first victory of 2004. Reid, third in the overall championship
standings, also set the race’s fastest lap to earn an
extra point and assure himself of a maximum score.
Muller took second but was under pressure throughout from
Computeach Racing with Halfords Honda driver Matt Neal, who
slid off the track on the final lap but still managed to finish
third. Thompson was fourth, just able to hold off Huff and
Reid’s WSR team-mate Colin Turkington who completed
the top six. Tenth, and guaranteeing himself pole position
for the second race thanks to the reversed grid rule, was
Stefan Hodgetts in Team Sureterm’s Vauxhall Astra.
Hodgetts, however, was unable to capitalise on his pole position:
a fault with his car away from the line in the second race
meant he was overtaken by several drivers and at the first
bend his race cruelly ended in the gravel trap after a shove
from another car. His day would end violently in the third
race when a wheel fell off his car and caused him to spin
out at high-speed, but not before he had brilliantly climbed
from last on the grid to 12th on the opening lap.
His demise in the second race left Plato, who had started
alongside him on the front row of the grid, in the lead –
a position he comfortably held to the chequered flag. Behind,
SEAT team-mate Huff squeezed past Computeach Racing with Halfords’
Dan Eaves for second. Eaves desperately tried to get back
in front, but Huff resisted his advances to follow Plato across
the line and give the ecstatic SEAT team its first 1-2 result
in the BTCC.
Eaves’ third place gave him victory in the Independents
Trophy. He was followed home by Thompson and Neal, who managed
to scrape past Muller for fifth with a lap to go. Muller’s
sixth position meant his championship lead over Thompson heading
into the day’s third race was just five points.
Turkington, who had got in front of Neal at one stage, and
Reid, again setting the fastest lap, were right behind in
seventh and eighth. Team Honda’s Tom Chilton was ninth,
having started last following retirement in the first race,
ahead of Shaun Watson-Smith, impressive as ever in his Team
Petronas Syntium Proton Impian.
Plato and Huff’s 1-2 had guaranteed them first and
second on the starting grid for the third race. It was Huff
who led the opening laps, thanks to a brave move around the
outside of Plato at the first bend, and for a while he looked
to be heading for the first BTCC race win of his career. Plato,
however, managed to pull him back in and eventually eased
by into the lead. The pair, this time under serious attack
from first Thompson and in the late stages Turkington, again
held station at the front to give SEAT a second 1-2 finish.
Turkington took third after several aggressive moves: he
first barged past Eaves who was sent into a spin and made
another place when Neal’s Honda hit mechanical problems
and retired. The WSR driver eventually made the final place
on the podium his own when he scythed past Thompson who then
had to drive defensively to hold back the lurking Muller.
In the end, the Vauxhall team-mates took fourth and fifth
and, as a result, Thompson has closed the gap to championship
leader Muller to just three points with 12 rounds to go –
the first three of which will be at Knockhill on 7-8 August
as the picturesque Scottish circuit makes a welcome return
to the BTCC calendar.
Plato’s win, meanwhile, has moved him up to fourth
in the overall standings ahead of Neal and to within nine
points of third-placed Reid who finished the third race in
sixth, the front end of his MG bearing the scars of a particularly
robust 15 laps. This, though, did not prevent him from yet
again achieving the race’s fastest lap.
Chilton was seventh after pushing his way past Watson-Smith
who, as a result of their contact, ran wide and slipped back
to tenth behind Vauxhall’s Luke Hines and the Astra
of reigning Independents Trophy champion Rob Collard –
at last getting into the points after a scrape in the first
race with James Kaye’s Synchro Motorsport Honda and
then retirement in the second with a gearbox problem.
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