Jason Plato has hailed the Subaru Levorg GT as a 'monumental feat of engineering' after debuting the Team BMR challenger for the first time during the British Touring Car Championship opener at Brands Hatch.

Subaru's opening tenure into the BTCC has already been a remarkable story as all four Levorg's - following a herculean effort from BMR - broke cover for the first time at Brands Hatch, just 87 days after work began on the RWD car.

Prior to the opening round, the Levorg had completed just one straight-line shakedown at the Millbrook test facility.

"We've should be over the moon. What a journey we've had! I'm massively proud of the team. Watching rival team members coming up and congratulating our boy's shows what an amazing job they have done," Plato told Crash.net.

"It's a monumental feat of engineering. It's a piece of art. We've had good reliability, certainly on my car and also with Colin's [Turkington]."

With the radical RWD Levorg still very much in the infancy of its development, Plato explained that the aim of the weekend was purely a data gathering exercise, which all hinged heavily on the cars reliability.

"It was a very productive day of 'testing'. We know where our weaknesses are and we've got some directions to go down with the car. We've already been able to close off some alleyways, which we know doesn't work," Plato explained.

"What we have to do is target down so we can focus on our direction. We haven't got the crosshairs where we want them yet but it's just about building knowledge.

"Reliability is still something that's on the very forefront of our minds. We can't afford to have any reliability issues, primarily because we need laps, like we can afford to be getting any shunts.

"We need to be doing race runs to see how the evolution of the car is. Now we've got a full race weekend that gives us a lot of data to pour through so then we can start thinking of taking the safety measures off."

Proving the raw potential of the Levorg, Plato set the fourth quickest lap during the second race while on his way to scoring Subaru's first points in the BTCC, with a 13th place finish.

On the powertrain front, apart from the audibly distinct pitch of the boxer-engine, Plato has already been left encouraged by BMR's collaboration with engine builders Mountune.

"We should be very pleased with our performance. My pace in race two was the fourth fastest lap of the race, only a tenth off the quickest time - that's quite sexy," the double champion continued.

"Mountune are pleased with how it's all working. Their pleased with how we are working with them. We're not on their backs so it's in a really good place."