Jason Plato has given SEAT Sport UK a great chance of winning Round 13 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship tomorrow after qualifying his SEAT Toldeo Cupra 4th on the grid at the Croft circuit. Track conditions were a lot slower than during free practice as the track warmed up in this afternoon’s blistering sun but all three drivers qualified within a second of pole position. Luke Hines will start from 10th on the grid with his team mate James Pickford right behind him in 11th.

Jason said: “I’m a little bit frustrated with that as we’re only a snip off the front row. We just seem to have lost a tiny bit of balance in the car this afternoon. On my first run out of the pits I was massively up on the split but got caught in traffic and lost the lap. It’s very easy to say that but we did have the speed. I think I was pushing a little bit too hard in the middle part of the session and kept on locking my fronts up which didn’t happen this morning. With a good start tomorrow I think we’re definitely in with a shout, it’s just a little bit disappointing that we lost a few tenths this afternoon after topping the second free practice session earlier but I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”

James said: “After free practice I thought I’d be in the top five or six as that’s where I’d been all morning. We changed the brake pads as I had a problem with locking fronts going into a few of the corners and afterwards the first half of the brake pedal worked but as I pushed it down further it didn’t, so in effect I didn’t have any brakes. Then both sets started locking and by the end of the session I’d only managed one flying lap. It’s really frustrating as I know the speed’s there but I just couldn’t show it. The weekend’s not over yet but it’s not the start I was hoping for.

Luke said: “It was really hard out there. I got a good time on the first set of tyres but I couldn’t seem to improve on that. Normally you put another set of tyres on the car and go a tenth or two tenths quicker but I just couldn’t find anything. The track is a lot slower than it was this morning because of the heat and that made it really difficult to grab that little bit more speed. I’m not too concerned though as we’ve got a good race pace and things are looking good for tomorrow.”