Jason Plato praised the efforts of his new British Touring Car Championship team on their début weekend, which saw Daniel Rowbottom win the first-ever qualifying race and Adam Morgan secure a trio of top ten results.
Showing strong pace on Saturday, both drivers managed to qualify their Mercedes-AMG A35 Saloons in the top ten, with Rowbottom an impressive third on the grid for the first qualifying race.
In that 13-lap sprint, the 37-year-old was in the mix from the very start, leading at the end of the opening lap before slotting in behind the rapid Tom Ingram on the next lap.
However, with Ingram having been penalised for a false start, Rowbottom stood to benefit from the five-second penalty, and duly kept close enough to claim the victory at the end of the race by a scant 0.024 seconds, securing a historic pole for Plato Racing.
The opening Round on Sunday saw Rowbottom bog down at the start, but he remained in the mix in second until he was handed a ten-second time penalty for exceeding track limits, meaning he slipped to 11th in the classification.
Rowbottom then suffered a crank sensor failure leading to an engine issue at the start of race two, sidelining him from the action, before a drive from the back of the grid in race three, with a new M-Sport engine installed, netted him another 11th-place finish.
Morgan, meanwhile, kept his head down in the day’s three races to produce a trio of top ten results, with each race producing a better finish than the last, culminating in eighth in race three.
Posting on LinkedIn, Team Owner Plato was really proud of his outfit’s efforts on his first weekend as a team boss, with Cataclean Plato Racing leaving the weekend fifth out of nine outfits in the Teams’ championship standings.
“While the results on Sunday weren’t what we may have hoped for, I’m coming away from Donington Park feeling really proud of what we’ve been able to achieve,” said Plato.
“Every single person – from the drivers, mechanics and engineers to truckies, chefs and hospitality team – has contributed to getting us on the grid and it was special to see it all come together.
“From an operational standpoint I felt we were very good while our look and feel was just incredible.
“Winning the qualifying race was a great moment on Saturday but sadly both Dan and Adam had a few little issues they were fighting on race day. That happens, but what is important is that we learn from them and make sure we can improve on them for next time.
“We’ve got masses of data to now go through so this three-week gap until the next event is good for us; everyone is extremely motivated to kick on and make sure we hit the ground running at Brands Hatch. This is where the fun starts now!”
Rowbottom highlighted the fact that he was frustrated after a weekend of highs and lows shows how the bar of expectation has been raised within the team.
“If you’d have said six months ago that we’d win the first-ever qualifying race and be in the mix towards the front of the field then I’d have snapped your hand off,” said Rowbottom. “The fact I’m somewhat frustrated now shows just how far we’ve come.
“We’ve made history by being the first-ever winners of the qualifying race and nobody can take that away from us. That was a special result and something we can all be proud of.
“Obviously race day didn’t really pan out too well for me but we know what we need to do next time.
“On the whole everyone within the team can be really proud. Every single person has pulled together and set an incredibly high standard, which is what we’re all about.
“Now it’s time to pour over everything we’ve learnt and go again in three weeks time.”
Morgan believes the team has only shown brief glimpses into what the new car can achieve.
“First of all, I have to give a huge amount of credit to everyone in the team because they’ve done a great job all weekend,” added Morgan. “Operationally we’ve been really slick and every single person has been at the top of their game.
“From my side it was a bit of a difficult weekend because we’ve been managing some over-boost issues and also understeer, so to come away with a hat-trick of top ten finishes isn’t the worst thing in the world.
“I think we’ve shown flashes of what the car is capable of and that’s really exciting. We’ve got a nice break now before Brands Hatch so we’ll unpack all the data we’ve collected and work towards making the package even more competitive.”