Jason Plato achieved the first ever victory for the Silverline Chevrolet team in Round 5 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Rockingham.

The Oxford-based driver came home ahead of the pack in Round Five of the series after a stunning start that saw him pass both Hondas on the opening straight, driving a very clean and technical race to earn him his 54th BTCC victory, and the Chevrolet Cruze its first.

Plato fought off pressure from Rob Collard’s BMW to cross the line just fractions of a second ahead of the 2009 champion, in the second of three races that saw him take the outright lead in the overall driver’s championship.

The victory followed an impressive first race, where Plato climbed his way up to third from fifth on the grid on a very tricky surface.

With a wet track drying out, he chose to run on slick tyres front and rear, which cost him time in the early part of the race, but more than compensated later on, as drivers who had elected to run slicks at the front and wets at the rear fell victim to premature tyre wear.

Later on, the BTCC’s lottery-style reverse grid led to Plato starting 9th on the grid in the third race, with team-mate Alex MacDowall starting from 12th.

The youngest driver on the grid had a frustrating afternoon. Having qualified an impressive third for the first race, a mixture of slick and wet tyres led to a fall down the rankings for the 19-year old in the first race, while two finishes outside the top 10 meant he was on the sixth row for the final race.

Things went from bad to worse after he span out on the second lap of Round Six, sustaining damage to the rear of the car.

The third race of the day was better for Plato – despite being forced to start on the fifth row, Jason climbed three places to finish sixth overall, adding a credible 6 points to his total, bringing his tally for the day to 33.

Plato now leads Matt Neal by 17 points in the championship, with the Silverline Chevrolet team leading Honda in the manufacturers/constructors standings with 118 points to 100.

"There’s still plenty of scope for us to get even more out of the car," said the championship leader.

"We proved today that our car is capable of winning races, and the changes we made between the first and second races saw us improve the car considerably – but I think we’ll be even faster as the season progresses."

The Silverline Chevrolet Team will have little time to rest ahead of the next round of the championship, as the BTCC heads to Brands Hatch on Sunday May 2nd.

(LB/GK)