SEAT 1-2 IN BTCC QUALIFYING, BELL A SHOCK THIRD
Jason Plato and James Thompson made it an all-SEAT front
row in qualifying for the first of tomorrow's (Sunday) three
Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship rounds at the
Oulton Park circuit in Cheshire.
Plato and Thompson, who between them have won three of the
last five BTCC titles, moved to the top of the times in their
SEAT Leons as the wet track started to dry slightly. Plato's
pole position time was set in 1m35.063s. Thompson's 1m35.329s
lap ensured the Spanish manufacturer of a lock-out.
But a shock third was Martyn Bell in his BMW 320i, run by
the small Geoff Steel Racing team. Bell had been the only
driver to set a tentative lap time in the drier early minutes
of the qualifying session. It then rained and until the closing
stages it appeared that nobody would beat his time. James
Kaye, in the equally small Synchro team's Honda Civic, was
a surprise fourth fastest.
Points leader, reigning champion Matt Neal, was only 11th
fastest in his Team Halfords Honda, four places behind his
nearest championship rival, Team RAC's Colin Turkington, in
seventh. Neal's car, it was later discovered, had been hampered
by an electrical fault.
Plato and Thompson, currently fourth and third in the title
race, know that they have an opportunity to claw back lost
ground to Neal and Turkington in the title race. "It's
a great chance for the whole team to get a 1-2 result in race
one and if we do that I think we can repeat it in race two,"
predicted 2001 BTCC champion Plato. "Matt's lead over
me is 13 points, but that's nothing and it can easily be gone
in those two races. I'll admit I was fortunate in that session
- at the start an output shaft broke on my car, but the team
worked wonders to fix it for me to get back out."
Bell, meanwhile, was delighted with his third place, although
conceded: "We were lucky and I've got to hand it to the
SEAT drivers - to beat my time in what were still not ideal
conditions really must have taken some doing. They both deserve
medals."
Kaye used his 15 years of BTCC experience to set the fourth
fastest time in the tricky conditions. "I told the team
to put slick tyres on the front and wet weather tyres on the
rear and then wait for the tyres to get up to operating temperature.
It's a trick that (former double champion) John Cleland taught
me years ago and it worked a treat," said 42-year-old
veteran Kaye, who is still chasing his first BTCC podium result.
Turkington's and Neal's progress will undoubtedly be worth
watching tomorrow and so will that of Vauxhall team-mates
Fabrizio Giovanardi and Tom Chilton - both drivers crashed
their Astra Sport Hatches early on in the session so never
set truly competitive lap times. As a result, Giovanardi will
start 14th and Chilton an even lowlier 17th.
Tomorrow's three races, rounds seven, eight and nine in the
championship, are scheduled to start at 12.10, 14.20 and 16.20.
Britain's number one commercial terrestrial television channel
ITV1 will be at Oulton to broadcast live coverage of the action.
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