Rowbottom gives Plato’s team a debut win after Ingram penalty

Dan Rowbottom gave the Plato Racing Mercedes team a debut British Touring Car Championship victory at Donington Park, even though he didn’t take the chequered flag first.

Tom Ingram stayed out front for most of the BTCC’s inaugural half-points qualifying race for most of its 13 laps, but had earned a five-second penalty because his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback was out of position at the start.

Ingram had earned pole position by topping the first qualifying group, while the new Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium of Ash Sutton joined the reigning champion on the front row. Four-time title winner Sutton was fastest in the other group, just 0.008s adrift of Ingram’s time, before his last-ditch bid to go quicker ended when he clouted a tyre stack at the chicane, causing a front-right puncture.

Sutton was all over Ingram on the opening lap before he chiselled a gap on the inside of the Hyundai at McLeans and Coppice. Ingram had momentum along the back straight to repass, before Rowbottom slung his Mercedes A35 Saloon around the outside of the Focus into the chicane to grab second place.

In a NASCAR-style finish to the first lap, Ingram and Rowbottom crossed the line side by side, with the Fords of Sutton and Dan Cammish also abreast immediately behind. Sutton used the tow to try to spear down the inside at Redgate, but found himself on the grass as Ingram moved across to defend.

That sent Sutton skittering across the track, swiping unfortunate team-mate Cammish on his way into the gravel trap and an early bath.

The notification of Ingram’s penalty came through on the fourth lap, at which point he had Rowbottom and the Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Josh Cook immediately behind.

With only nine laps remaining, there seemed no prospect of Ingram negating the time penalty, and even with three laps to go his leading margin was less than two seconds.

But such was the end-of-race pace of the Hyundai relative to its rivals that Ingram had that up to 3.5s with one lap to go, and eventually he fell a mere 0.024s short, slotting into second place between Rowbottom and Cook.

“It’s mental,” said Rowbottom. “It’s been a long winter, it’s been a challenge at times, but we’ve got a great product.

“Tom had more pace, but we did just enough. We’re still learning about the car – we don’t really know what it does. That was its first proper race run.”

“I saw the penalty board and I didn’t know what it was for,” said Ingram. “It’s really tricky because I always give myself a margin of error, probably about two feet back from where the tape is on the wall. Whether it wasn’t in straight, whether it was off, I don’t know.”

Just behind the leading trio, Mikey Doble did a fine job on the debut of the Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon to take fourth ahead of Charles Rainford’s West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport, with their late pace suggesting they will be a force over Sunday’s conventional 18-lap races.

Both Doble and Rainford overtook the Excelr8 Hyundai of Tom Chilton, who hung on for sixth ahead of Adam Morgan in the second Plato Mercedes. Completing the top 10 were Aiden Moffat (PMR Audi), Gordon Shedden (Speedworks-run Laser Tools Toyota) and Daryl De Leon (WSR BMW).

Cammish got back up to eighth after the second-lap incident, but further dramas left him down in 14th – still the best Alliance Ford after a miserable race for the team.

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– The Autosport.com Team