Plato hits back at Muller jibes.

Until the BTCC went to Mondello Park, the rivalry between former Vauxhall teammates Yvan Muller and Jason Plato had been surprisingly quiet.

However a coming together in the third race in Ireland soon changed that. The incident saw Plato forced to retire while Muller was able to carry on to take sixth place.

Afterwards Muller was quick to blame his archenemy, pulling no punches with his views on Plato's two victories this season for the SEAT team.

"I was in second and Plato just forgot to brake," he said. "He hit me in the side and pushed me off. I managed to reach the flag for sixth. It could have been worse but it could have been a lot better.

"You can't expect any better from this guy. The only chance he has to win a race is to finish tenth in race one so that he gets pole for the second one. Without that he would never win a race."

Unsurprisingly, Plato had a different view of the incident and refused to take the blame. While he showed sympathy for Colin Turkington, who made contact with Plato's SEAT a few corners before the Muller collision, he was quick to attack his former VX Racing teammate - reiterating again that there is no love lost between the pair.

"I genuinely feel Yvan was a bit naughty at Mondello," he told the official BTCC website. "People say 'oh, what about Turkington', but he was over committed into that corner and I've been there before. It wasn't dirty.

"But if we're talking about the Yvan thing - what I don't do is go from one side of the track to other and crash into someone. Whether he miss-read the situation I don't know. The fact is he turned into a corner super early knowing I was there down his inside.

"He's one of the best touring car drivers in the world so for him to say he didn't know I was there is bullshit. It was just unnecessary. I'm always going to get pissed off with Yvan because it's commonly known we don't like each other. I think he's a great driver, but he tells fibs and I don't like fibs."

Should make for interesting viewing if the two get involved in a battle this weekend at Croft...