Henley-in-Arden's Mat Jackson continued to show why he's a touring car champion of the future at Rockingham yesterday with another place on the Dunlop British Touring Car Championship podium, this time alongside one of the biggest names in the sport, Jason Plato.
In front of guests from sponsors Whale and Maxim, Mat raced his family Jacksons MSport team's privately-run BMW 320si E90 to 2nd place behind Plato's factory-entered SEAT at Rockingham in the third race. He had already finished the day's first two races in points-scoring 10th and 4th positions but his 2nd place means a second podium result in as many race meetings and is also an improvement over the 3rd place he took in Brands Hatch's season-opener earlier in the month.
The 25-year-old is now up to an excellent fifth in the BTCC's outright championship for drivers with his next target Matt Neal, the reigning champion! He's also the new leader of the BTCC's Independents championship for drivers and Jacksons MSport are doing nicely as well with fifth in the outright Teams championship (by far and away the best single-car team) and second in the Independents championship for Teams, just seven points off the top.
Mat, one of the most popular drivers judging by the size of the crowd clamouring for his autograph during the fans Paddock Walkabout yesterday, says: "It's been another great day for everyone associated with the team and builds nicely on our strong start to the season at Brands Hatch. It could have been even better as we had Matt Neal rattled in race one when I was fighting him for 4th. I went for a gap but he turned across me and hit the front of my car. Unfortunately that lost me some speed onto the main straight and a few others were able to get past.
"But I knew we were better than that, the car was very competitive all weekend and 4th in race 2 was a great feeling. That put us back in 7th on the grid for race 3's reversed top 10 grid, but I used the BMW's rear-wheel-drive advantage off the line to make up a lot of ground by the first corner and then a few cars took each other out and I was in 2nd behind Plato. But we were quite evenly-matched and I couldn't quite get close enough to have a proper go at him.
"To come away 5th in the BTCC and to be leading the Independents points in what is only the team's second meeting in the championship is probably better than we'd dared hope for. I'm confident we can improve some more at Thruxton which should suit the BMW even better."
BTCC points (provisional): Drivers: 1st Jason Plato 74pts; 2nd Fabrizio Giovanardi, 56; 3rd Tom Chilton 49; 4th Matt Neal 42 17; 5th Mat Jackson 35; 6th Colin Turkington 29 etc. Independents drivers: 1st Mat Jackson 58 pts; 2nd Mike Jordan 47; 3rd Tom Onslow-Cole 46; 4th Colin Turkington & Matt Allison 42 etc. Teams: 1st VX Racing 102pts; 2nd SEAT Sport UK 92; 3rd Team Halfords 57; 4th Team RAC 54; 5th Jacksons MSport 34; 6th Team Eurotech 19 etc. Independent teams: 1st Team RAC 67; 2nd Jacksons MSport 60; 3rd Motorbase 48; 4th Eurotech 47 etc.
