JASON PLATO engineered a SEAT double-double at Croft and then scratched his head as to why his British Touring Car Championship rivals didn't adopt the same crafty tactics.

The 36-year-old, who regards Croft as his home circuit having grown up in Newcastle, stood atop the podium with teammate Rob Huth on two of the three occasions yesterday to bring himself within touching distance of third place in the title race. MG's Anthony Reid, who won the first race, currently occupies that spot.

All in all it was a perfect day for Plato and SEAT who adopted a pragmatic approach to changes BTCC chiefs implemented at the start of the year.

Each meeting features three 15-lap races with novel ways of deciding just who starts at the front of the grid. Race one's line-up is dictated by qualifying the day before. However, for the second the first ten finishing places in the opener are reversed, meaning Plato's strategic ninth saw him handily placed behind pole-sitter Stefan Hodgetts.

Hodgetts even did him a favour in letting him edge by his Vauxhall Astra Coupe on the approach to the first chicane before going off the track and into retirement.

This left Plato with a clear track ahead of him and, after lap two, Huth, up from fifth, behind to protect him all the way to the flag.

The final race saw Plato and Huth's cars weighed down with ballast but with their previous first and second giving them the front two positions on the track it meant all they had to do was make their Toledo Cupras as wide as possible and hope their reliability held out. It did and Plato, the first driver to win back-to-back races this term, was understandably delighted.

"It's fantastic. I had the same emotions running through my head with three laps to go at Mondello but it never came off," he said, in reference to a potential double victory that was put paid to by the emergence of the safety car in Ireland.

"It has been great for the team. We have had a wonderful day. They have two one-twos. We couldn't really ask for anything more."

Plato denied that trying as hard as possible to come tenth in the first race rather than go all out to win it, made a mockery of the championship.

"As well as reversing the positions, we also have a system of success ballast," he explained. "If you win a race you get 42 kilos of lead and if you come tenth you get minus 24. So the difference between first and tenth is 66 kilos, which is massive when you consider we are pulling 2g.

"So it makes no sense for me to try and do as well as I can in race one and then get reversed, go backwards and get a load of weight.

"It's best to finish as near as tenth as possible, take weight off and go forward.

"Then the system for the third race is I start on pole and, OK, I am heavy but I have got the best possible grid position. It's a simple strategy and I haven't got a clue (why the others don't do it)."

SEAT are in their first year in the championship and Plato, who has been involved with the team from the ground up, readily admits it was supposed to be a time for development.

"I knew we were going to be good because I was involved right from the ground level," said Plato, who is back in the championship after a two-season hiatus.

Vauxhall's Yvan Muller, the reigning champion, leads the championship by three points from teammate James Thompson as the title race heads to Scotland's Knockhill circuit next month.

Published: 26/07/2004