Jason Plato took his third victory of the 2007 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship in round six at Rockingham. The SEAT driver made a stunning start from sixth to lead into the tight Deene corner for the first time.

Plato squeezed between the SEAT Leon of his teammate Darren Turner and the BMW 3 Series of Mat Jackson off the grid and was lucky to escape unscathed. But escape he did and he soon found himself leading the race, ahead of Jackson.

There were two casualties on the grid as neither Gareth Howell nor Martyn Bell were able to make it away onto the green flag lap. On pole thanks to the reverse grid, John George in the TH Motorsport Honda Integra could not keep the raft of pacier runners behind him at the start. Behind Plato it was the rear-wheel drive BMWs that started strongly, with Mat Jackson climbing to second and Tom Onslow-Cole up to third. But it was another bad race for Colin Turkington in the second Team RAC, who pulled off the track after just a couple of laps.

Darren Turner was fourth in the early stages, with Matt Allison just behind for Motorbase Performance. Next was Tom Chilton, but it was not long before the VX Racing driver was up into fifth. He quickly gained another place as well after Tom Onslow-Cole dropped a couple of spots. Fabrizio Giovanardi was also on the move in the second Vectra. He may have been carrying a full quota of success ballast after winning the first two races, but that failed to stop him climbing up through the top ten.

There was a single lap safety car outing on lap nine to allow for debris to be cleared from the track, which closed the pack right up once again. Plato soon opened up a sizeable lead again following the restart, with Mat Jackson and Darren Turner not quite managing to stay with him. There was frustration for race two podium finisher Onslow-Cole as his BMW slowed on the restart allowing the whole field to pass him.

The closing stages were dominated by the battle for fifth between Giovanardi and Matt Neal. The ballast-laden Vectra did a great job of holding off the lightweight Civics, looking particularly strong under braking. Neal made repeated attempts to find a way past, but ended up losing fifth to teammate Shedden on the final lap when he failed to edge out Giovanardi.

At the chequered flag, it was Plato from Mat Jackson, Darren Turner, Chilton and Giovanardi. Shedden was sixth with Neal seventh and Mike Jordan eighth after his Team Eurotech crew worked hard to repair his heavily damaged car after race two. Matt Allison scored more points for Motorbase Performance in ninth while Simon Blanckley rounded out the top ten.

Jason Plato said, “I was pretty disappointed with the second race, but that’s how it goes. It’s great to lead the championship but it means you have maximum ballast. In the second race I just didn’t have the pace. If we’ve got clean air then we’ve got good speed, but if we’re behind someone then we just can’t do anything. It was important to get a good start in the third race because I knew the BMW would struggle with cold tyres for the first couple of laps.”

Mat Jackson said, “It’s great to be in between the two SEATs. The BMW has been fantastic today. We got wiped out in race one and we lost four or five places. Then we came back to fourth in race two, but we lost out on the reverse grid. To get second in the last race is great.”

Darren Turner said, “At the start of the weekend it all looked really good, but it just hasn’t gone right for us. I got some points but I wanted to claw my way back up in the championship this weekend.”