H M Plant Honda’s Steve Plater pulled back five important points to help keep his current lead in the Fuchs-Silkolene British Supersport Championship category stopping Billy McConnell who has been finishing ahead of him closing the gap down.
Plater was also named the Eurosport Rider of the Day by James Whitham due to taking the race win after unusually qualifying on the third row in ninth place.  The Woodhall Spa rider struggled with setup and made several adjustments to the bike throughout the weekend, but nothing seemed to make the difference he needed.
In the race he was no doubt one to watch, after a few laps in seventh place and the safety car returned to the pits Plater was on the charge picking those ahead one by one to take the lead on the penultimate lap and the win by two tenths of a second.
Plater said: “I wasn’t really happy even after morning’s warm up, we have had some issues and even in the race had problems in the same kind of places. We were given some advice from one or two of the other Honda teams as to what settings they were using but in the end decided to go with what we knew and not to take any big risks.  I changed to a harder rear tyre because the temperature had dropped right off from Saturday so it wasn’t quite so good in the first five or six laps.”
“But I bided my time and after the pace car went in I decided it was time to rock and roll. I knew what I had to do, I was watching and looking to see what everybody else was doing. They were fighting between themselves and I knew what I wanted and where I was to attack. Croft is a place where you have to plan your moves four corners beforehand so I had to keep that in my mind and put the passes in where I knew I could make them count.”
The penultimate round takes place in two weeks at Silverstone where the intense battle continues.