Jason Plato may be off the scene at the team he founded, but its form continued with a dominant 1-2 in the British Touring Car Championship qualifying race at Donington Park.
For the second successive BTCC race weekend, Adam Morgan became the Saturday victor, with Dan Rowbottom following him home in the sister CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon.
Morgan emerged on pole position from a rather lopsided qualifying split after topping the ‘Group of Death’, while Josh Cook led a 1-2-3 for Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla GR Sports in the other half of the entry.
While the Mercs were both on the maximum 20 seconds per lap of TOCA Turbo Boost, Cook was restricted to 15s due to his seventh position in the championship.
The front-row-starting Toyota was down to third by the first corner at Redgate anyway, with Morgan converting his pole smartly to lead from Rowbottom.
On the second lap, Mikey Doble’s Power Maxed Racing Audi stopped at Schwantz Curve and the safety car was sent out – but it turned out not to necessary, because the Surrey man got it refired and set off in pursuit of the pack.
Scarcely had the race got going again when Daryl De Leon’s West Surrey Racing BMW became stranded on the exit of the Goddard hairpin. This time the marshals were forced to earn their keep by pushing the stricken 3-Series uphill to the disused old pit entry road.
Dan Rowbottom
Photo by: JEP
Once the race finally got going, there was time for five more laps of action. Although Rowbottom initially kept Morgan honest, the personable Lancastrian eventually pulled out a 2.443 seconds gap to take a comfortable victory.
“To do what we’ve done in the last two rounds is a pretty remarkable turnaround,” said Morgan. “The cars have made huge leaps forward in terms of set-up, and we’re extracting all of that.
“I was probably overly cautious in the first couple of laps – I had a couple of slides and didn’t want to throw it away – but once I was comfortable I was able to push and push and push and build that lead.”
With Rowbottom’s tyres fading, Cook had almost caught him back up by the end in a good run to third for the Toyota.
To do that, Cook had to fight off a tenacious Ash Sutton, the championship leader starting seventh in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium.
Sutton, on just one second per lap of TTB, almost squeezed ahead of Cook after the second restart, but Cook was able to use his boost advantage to stay in front.
Dan Cammish was next in his Valvoline-liveried Alliance Ford, but only just. Right on his bumper at the end were the Laser Tools Toyotas of Gordon Shedden and Aron Taylor-Smith, plus Tom Ingram.
Start
Photo by: JEP
The reigning champion had qualified his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback way back in 17th, but picked his way up the order on just 3s per lap of TTB and nearly grabbed seventh from Taylor-Smith at the finish.
Sam Osborne was with this gaggle too, ninth in his Alliance Ford, while the PMR Audi A3 Saloon of Dexter Patterson completed the top 10.
BTCC Donington Park – Qualifying race results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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