There have been plenty of false starts in Jason Plato’s bid to find the key to his Subaru Levorg’s handling over the past 12 months.
But after dramatic changes to the set-up in the latter stages of the opening weekend at Brands Hatch, and more tweaking and refining at last week’s test day at Thruxton, the double BTCC champion believes the understeer that’s dogged him for months has finally been cured.
“It reconfirmed and validated our thinking on what’s been going on with the car…”
“It was a very useful test to have, albeit it was only two small, short sessions,” he said, ahead of this weekend’s racing at Donington Park.
“It reconfirmed and validated our thinking on what’s been going on with the car and how we can improve it. We had some positives throughout the day, the changes we were making – big changes – showed we’re going in the right direction.
“We now have the tools to dial out the understeer which has plagued us for a long time, so much so that at Thruxton we actually made the front a bit too good.
“It’s a completely different set-up than we’ve ever run before and I’m looking forward to having a car on which I’ve got a good front end, that’s the most important thing for me, that I know where the front is.
“I’m really looking forward to the weekend.”
Still work to be done…
Plato said there was still work to be done on getting the most out of the Adrian Flux Subaru Racing Levorg’s new Swindon engine, but not too much should be read into his lap times at Thruxton.
“It was quite a disjointed session at Thruxton – we had a couple of red flags and the weather was not so good in the morning session,” he added.
“We didn’t get a good time on the board in the afternoon – it was looking like we would but then we lost a lap and never got a representative time in really.
“Our speed trap data from Brands Hatch didn’t look very good for us and we need to understand why that is. There’s quite a bit of work to do on the motor and looking at drag and those sorts of things.
“But the objective is to be higher up the pack and I think we should be in a completely different performance window to we’ve been of late.”
Qualifying can be seen live on Saturday from 3.15pm on ITV.com/BTCC, with the racing live on ITV4 on Sunday from 10.40am.
Do you enjoy track days? Find out more about Adrian Flux’s Track Day Insurance.
