Matt Neal in pole position for championship finale, Race 1

The battle for pole looked like it would boil down to a fight between title outsider Mat Jackson and championship contender Gordon Shedden's Honda Civic.

Shedden set the pace during the first runs, before Jackson took provisional pole with 59.391s. Shedden hit back only for Jackson to record a 59.166s lap.

It seemed Jackson had given the Motorbase Ford team its first race-one pole of the year, but with less than four minutes to go Neal jumped to the top of the times with 59.131s, just as Tony Hughes went off at Copse.

"It wasn't looking pretty before then," admitted points leader Neal after his third race-one pole of the season. "I'm just relieved. I can't believe it. There was nothing left in the car."

Behind the top three came an ill James Nash in Triple Eight's Vauxhall Vectra, meaning that four of the five title contenders are on the top two rows.

Alex MacDowall was the top normally aspirated runner in fifth, two places ahead of his 27kg success ballast-laden team-mate Plato.

In between the two Chevies in sixth was Tom Chilton in the leading Arena Ford Focus, 0.3s off pole.

Returning former champion James Thompson continued to struggle with his 45kg of ballast - compared to team-mate Jackson's 18kg - and will start tomorrow's opening race from 15th.

He, along with Tom Onslow-Cole also lost their best laps, having set them under yellows. That dropped Arena Ford driver Onslow-Cole from ninth to 11th, while Thompson's Motorbase Focus remains 15th but loses his 59.986s lap.


Pos  Driver                  Car           Time/Gap
 1.  Matt Neal               Honda           59.131s
 2.  Mat Jackson             Ford            59.166s  + 0.035s
 3.  Gordon Shedden          Honda           59.265s  + 0.134s
 4.  James Nash              Vauxhall        59.308s  + 0.177s
 5.  Alex MacDowall          Chevrolet       59.362s  + 0.231s
 6.  Tom Chilton             Ford            59.432s  + 0.301s
 7.  Jason Plato             Chevrolet       59.507s  + 0.376s
 8.  Andy Neate              Ford            59.533s  + 0.402s
 9.  Frank Wrathall          Toyota          59.605s  + 0.474s
10.  Tom Boardman            SEAT            59.635s  + 0.504s
11.  Tom Onslow-Cole         Ford            59.657s  + 0.526s
12.  Andrew Jordan           Vauxhall        59.817s  + 0.686s
13.  Dave Newsham            SEAT            59.835s  + 0.704s
14.  Paul O'Neill            Chevrolet       59.873s  + 0.742s
15.  James Thompson          Ford          1m00.128s  + 0.997s
16.  Nick Foster             BMW           1m00.188s  + 1.057s
17.  Rob Collard             BMW           1m00.201s  + 1.070s
18.  Liam Griffin            Ford          1m00.216s  + 1.085s
19.  Ollie Jackson           Vauxhall      1m00.223s  + 1.092s
20.  Rob Austin              Audi          1m00.344s  + 1.213s
21.  Daniel Welch            Proton        1m00.404s  + 1.273s
22.  Tony Gilham             BMW           1m00.473s  + 1.342s
23.  John George             Chevrolet     1m00.757s  + 1.626s
24.  Martin Byford           Volkswagen    1m00.852s  + 1.721s
25.  Chris Swanwick          Audi          1m01.028s  + 1.897s
26.  Lea Wood                Honda         1m01.107s  + 1.976s
27.  Tony Hughes             Toyota        1m01.206s  + 2.075s
28.  Chris James             Chevrolet     1m01.620s  + 2.489s
29.  Jeff Smith              Vauxhall      1m03.656s  + 4.525s