Double British Touring Car champion Jason Plato has heaped praise on Speedworks Motorsport's Tom Ingram by dubbing th💃eir enthralling race three contest at Rockingham as a 'proper battle'.

The pair embarked on one of the races of the season when a determined start from P🥃lato immediately launched the Team꧂ BMR driver directly behind the Speedworks Toyota of Ingram, who led the reverse grid away from pole position.

Plato immediately began to aꦰpply a barrage of pressure onto Ingram and made numerous attempts for the lead by diving up the inside of the Avensis at the Deene Hairpin.

But every time Plato appeared to have stolen the lead away from Ingram, the 22-year old tenaciously fought back and held the position around the outside of the Volkswagen CC to hold the top spot through the🐽 following sequence of corners.

Plato finally broke through Ingram's courageous linℱe of defence with five laps of the race to go as Ingram held onto second ahead of Colin Turking🌌ton.

"It was proper racing," Plato told wuqian0821.com "Things d🌸o occasionally over boil in this championship and there's a reason for that but generally, if everyone plays a straight bat, we get great racing.

"Sometimes it does go overboard. It didn't tod🍒ay [Sunday] so that's great."

Plato revealed after the race that he lost his right hand wing mirror when making his first attempt for the le🍨ad and said Ingram cleverly used that to his advantage by catching the Team BMR man unaware within his blind spot.

"The first time I tried 🐬to pass him I knocked my right hand door mirror off so I couldn't see where he was and he knew that. Perhaps I've taught him a few too many of my tri🔴cks!

"Maybe when I look back over the tapes I'll see that I did have an overlap to c♕lose the door but, 🍃at the time, I didn't know.

"I had to allow a margin and he took💦 full advantage of that. It was brilliant.

"I've worked with Tom [Ingram] and he was our firsꩲt 'darling' of the KX Academy. After two years of mentoring him we saw something special and we've seen it today. He's a star that lﷺad and a brilliant driver. He drove incredibly well, beautifully actually."