Jason Plato hopes to bounce back after a frustrating start to the season, but there are still problems to be solved over the summer break.
Plato struggled with understeer in the opening rounds of the championship. After testing in team mate Ashley Sutton’s car, he made a huge step forward at Croft last weekend, but Plato feels the car is now oversteering.
“We are now at the sharp end, and we’ve got a very timely midseason break now to understand what’s wrong with my car,” he said.
“We’ve made a big step forward in that we were competitive [at Croft]… We’ve transformed the car into an over-steerer rather than an under-steerer and, whereas it’s much nicer to drive like that, we were still a little bit too much one way.”
Plato hopes to resolve that over the break, but he’s reluctant to make changes in case the car goes back to how it was.
“I was slightly nervous about trying to dial that oversteer out because every time we’ve done that sort of stuff in the past we’ve brought back understeer,” he said. “I said ‘just polish the car, don’t touch it – just clean it, let’s not change the set up’.”
BMR will complete tests over the break to solve the problems. Plato will again run back-to-back tests in both his own and Sutton’s car.
“Everyone’s working really hard,” he said. “I know I can do great things and win multiple races if I can get everything sorted.”
Feature image credit: Caroline Rhea
