Jason Plato is the favourite to lift the title when the British Touring Car Championship gets under way. The Oxford driver will be in a new Chevrolet Cruze for the first time at Thruxton tomorrow. And if practise times and anything to go by, Plato’s rivals may struggle to peg him back. Plato threw down the gauntlet to their rivals with the fastest ever British Touring Car lap recorded around the Brands Hatch Indy circuit during official testing. During the afternoon session, 2001 champion Plato set a scintillating lap time of 48.662secs in the Cruze as Gordon Shedden (Team Honda), Steven Kane (Airwaves BMW) and Tom Chilton (Aon Ford Focus) made it four different makes of car in the top four. Ultimately, it was a fantastic response from Plato who missed the morning session after a steering problem on his car. Plato’s time was some 0.155s faster than Scotsman Shedden (48.817s).
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