Seat Sport UK and Jason Plato gave a masterclass in timing to perfection in qualifying for round seven of the 2004 BTCC. The former champion grabbed pole position at the latest possible moment in the 30 minute session, which took place on a drying track.

“That was fantastic”, said Plato after the session. “After the weekend we had at Brands Hatch we’ve come right back with a great performance. We had a bit of a plan. I needed to have hot tyres on the rear so we ran with wets on the back to start with until the slicks got up to temperature. I thought I’d messed up because I did one too many laps on the wets, but it worked out ok. It’s really good, and we’ve got some new updates on the car that seem to be doing the job.”

Provisional pole position changed hands on numerous occasions throughout the session as the trend moved from treaded to slick tyres. Come the end of the session, it was James Thompson who had the second fastest time to start alongside Plato in tomorrow’s first race. The second row will be an all orange line-up with Matt Neal and Dan Eaves putting their Computeach Racing with Halfords Honda Civics in third and fourth positions respectively.

Neal later said: “It was a bit slippery out there. We’ve got both cars on the second row though so that’s good. I was hoping the clock would tick down that little bit quicker, but Jason timed it just right at the end, and so did Thommo.”

Tom Chilton rounded out the top five, just 0.347 seconds off of the pole position time. Reigning BTCC champion Yvan Muller perhaps made the wrong tyre choice towards the end of the session – opting not to run on all slicks – and as result finds himself Eighth on the grid.