Brands Hatch BTCC: Returning Priaulx pips VWs to take pole
Andy Priaulx's British Touring Car Championship return got off to the perfect start at Brands Hatch as the three-time world champion bagged pole position in a fiercely contested qualifying session
The Guernseyman could not quite match Andrew Jordan's pole time from last year but a 48.411s effort in his WSR BMW 125i M Sport was enough to shade Aron Smith for pole.
Smith, who won twice last year for Team BMR, beat his new Volkswagen team-mates Jason Plato and Colin Turkington to secure his best qualifying result in the BTCC.
The Irishman delivered a superb late flying lap to end up just 0.069 seconds slower than Priaulx and 0.054s ahead of Plato, who beat 2014 champion Turkington by just one-thousandth of a second on what was almost his final effort.
Turkington kicked off his first season with the BMR team with the best time in second practice and was briefly on provisional pole before Priaulx improved.
A red flag, to deal with the stricken Eurotech Honda Civic of Martin Depper, which shed a wheel, set up a 10-minute shootout for pole but nobody could overhaul Priaulx as Turkington was shuffled back to fourth.
Behind the trio of Volkswagens, Rob Collard bagged fifth, ahead of MG debutant Jack Goff, Gordon Shedden in the new Honda Civic Type-R and Sam Tordoff in the third WSR BMW.
Speedworks' Tom Ingram was ninth ahead of 2013 champion Andrew Jordan, whose run of pole positions ended emphatically on his own MG debut, with both drivers within a quarter of a second of Priaulx's pole lap.
The top 18 drivers were covered by less than a second ahead of the opener, which is due to feature 27 cars - though only 26 took part in qualifying after Warren Scott's Volkswagen could not be repaired in time following a crash in second practice.
QUALIFYING RESULTS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Andy Priaulx | WSR | BMW | 48.411s | - | 32 |
2 | Aron Taylor-Smith | Team BMR | Volkswagen | 48.480s | 0.069s | 28 |
3 | Jason Plato | Team BMR | Volkswagen | 48.534s | 0.123s | 25 |
4 | Colin Turkington | Team BMR | Volkswagen | 48.535s | 0.124s | 25 |
5 | Rob Collard | WSR | BMW | 48.562s | 0.151s | 32 |
6 | Jack Goff | MG | MG | 48.599s | 0.188s | 26 |
7 | Gordon Shedden | Honda | Honda | 48.608s | 0.197s | 27 |
8 | Sam Tordoff | WSR | BMW | 48.631s | 0.220s | 31 |
9 | Tom Ingram | Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota | 48.643s | 0.232s | 23 |
10 | Andrew Jordan | MG | MG | 48.656s | 0.245s | 27 |
11 | Matt Neal | Honda | Honda | 48.694s | 0.283s | 29 |
12 | Adam Morgan | Ciceley Racing | Mercedes | 48.717s | 0.306s | 26 |
13 | Rob Austin | Rob Austin Racing | Audi | 48.895s | 0.484s | 31 |
14 | Dave Newsham | Power Maxed | Chevrolet | 48.911s | 0.500s | 27 |
15 | Aiden Moffat | Aiden Moffat Racing | Mercedes | 48.931s | 0.520s | 28 |
16 | Hunter Abbott | Rob Austin Racing | Audi | 48.964s | 0.553s | 31 |
17 | Jeff Smith | Eurotech | Honda | 49.101s | 0.690s | 28 |
18 | Mike Bushell | AmD | Ford | 49.367s | 0.956s | 28 |
19 | Martin Depper | Eurotech | Honda | 49.492s | 1.081s | 15 |
20 | Josh Cook | Power Maxed | Chevrolet | 49.517s | 1.106s | 18 |
21 | Alex Martin | Team Parker | Ford | 49.575s | 1.164s | 29 |
22 | Simon Belcher | Handy Motorsport | Toyota | 49.633s | 1.222s | 32 |
23 | Stewart Lines | Houseman Racing | Toyota | 50.596s | 2.185s | 29 |
24 | Derek Palmer Jr. | Infiniti | Infiniti | 50.609s | 2.198s | 23 |
25 | Kieran Gallagher | Team Hard | Toyota | 50.762s | 2.351s | 25 |
26 | Andy Wilmot | Welch Motorsport | Proton | 52.665s | 4.254s | 14 |
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