Croft BTCC: BMR Subaru gets another pole with Colin Turkington
Colin Turkington secured a second straight British Touring Car Championship pole position for BMR's new Subaru Levorg with a dominant performance in qualifying at Croft
In a session split in half by a stoppage following a clash between the Honda of Matt Neal and Rob Collard's BMW at Hawthorn, Turkington proved to be in a class of his own, setting no fewer than four laps that would be good enough for pole.
Neal reprimanded for qualifying collision
Hitting the front just eight minutes into the session with the first sub-1m24s lap of the weekend, Turkington improved twice when qualifying resumed after the red flag period only to see both laptimes removed for exceeding track limits.
As the chequered flag flew, the two-time champion was able to post what would be his best lap of the session, with a 1m23.608s leaving him almost four tenths of a second clear of his nearest challenger.
"I've always enjoyed Croft no matter what I'm in," he said. "We've improved the Subaru again and big thanks to the guys for giving me a quick car."
Building on his impressive performance in practice, Dan Lloyd secured second place in his Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type-R on his final flying lap to demote Ashley Sutton to third.
The MG driver recovered from a spin exiting Hawthorn and then a lurid slide at the Complex to end up just 0.003s shy of the front row.
Sutton had looked set to improve on his final lap when he set a personal best through the first sector, but then slowed later in the lap and would require a push from marshals to get back into the pits.
Jason Plato in the second of the BMR-run Subarus was fourth quickest with championship leader Sam Tordoff again making light of the success ballast on his BMW 125i M Sport to be quickest of the West Surrey Racing drivers, sharing row three of the grid with team-mate Jack Goff.
Hunter Abbott left it to the final seconds to secure his best qualifying result to date with seventh in his Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet.
Andrew Jordan was unable to match his practice pace in eighth. His Motorbase team-mate Mat Jackson and the Ciceley-run Mercedes A Class of Adam Morgan rounded out the top 10.
The late changes towards the head of the field prevented Jake Hill from earning a top 10 starting position in his Team HARD Toyota despite spending the first half of the session on the provisional front row, while there was disappointment for defending champion Gordon Shedden who lines up down in 14th place.
Collard and Neal meanwhile will start from 16th and 17th following their coming together, having both been well placed inside the top 10 prior to the stoppage.
QUALIFYING TIMES
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Colin Turkington | Team BMR | Subaru | 1m23.608s | - |
2 | Daniel Lloyd | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 1m24.005s | 0.397s |
3 | Ash Sutton | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 1m24.008s | 0.400s |
4 | Jason Plato | Team BMR | Subaru | 1m24.020s | 0.412s |
5 | Sam Tordoff | WSR | BMW | 1m24.053s | 0.445s |
6 | Jack Goff | WSR | BMW | 1m24.068s | 0.460s |
7 | Hunter Abbott | Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet | 1m24.071s | 0.463s |
8 | Andrew Jordan | Motorbase Performance | Ford | 1m24.184s | 0.576s |
9 | Mat Jackson | Motorbase Performance | Ford | 1m24.229s | 0.621s |
10 | Adam Morgan | Ciceley Racing | Mercedes | 1m24.253s | 0.645s |
11 | Jake Hill | Team Hard | Toyota | 1m24.289s | 0.681s |
12 | Tom Ingram | Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota | 1m24.311s | 0.703s |
13 | Rob Collard | WSR | BMW | 1m24.332s | 0.724s |
14 | Aron Taylor-Smith | Team BKR | Volkswagen | 1m24.381s | 0.773s |
15 | Gordon Shedden | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 1m24.433s | 0.825s |
16 | Rob Austin | Handy Motorsport | Toyota | 1m24.457s | 0.849s |
17 | Matt Neal | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 1m24.523s | 0.915s |
18 | Josh Cook | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 1m24.663s | 1.055s |
19 | Michael Epps | Team Hard | Toyota | 1m24.669s | 1.061s |
20 | Aiden Moffat | Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes | 1m24.721s | 1.113s |
21 | Warren Scott | Team BMR | Subaru | 1m24.827s | 1.219s |
22 | Ollie Jackson | AmD Tuning | Audi | 1m24.859s | 1.251s |
23 | Martin Depper | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 1m24.930s | 1.322s |
24 | Daniel Welch | Welch Motorsport | Proton | 1m25.050s | 1.442s |
25 | James Cole | Team BMR | Subaru | 1m25.060s | 1.452s |
26 | Jeff Smith | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 1m25.081s | 1.473s |
27 | Alex Martin | Team Parker Racing | Ford | 1m25.125s | 1.517s |
28 | Matt Simpson | Speedworks Motorsport | Honda | 1m25.350s | 1.742s |
29 | Kelvin Fletcher | Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet | 1m25.624s | 2.016s |
30 | Chris Smiley | Team Hard | Toyota | 1m25.909s | 2.301s |
31 | Stewart Lines | Maximum Motorsport | Ford | 1m26.754s | 3.146s |
32 | Mark Howard | Team BKR | Volkswagen | 1m26.935s | 3.327s |
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