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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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