Ash Sutton takes Silverstone BTCC pole position in Triple Eight MG

Sutton's MG was fastest when the session was red flagged with just four minutes remaining because of Mark Howard's off at Copse Corner.

He had posted the day's fastest lap on a 58.321s, which put him in front of the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis of Tom Ingram, with team-mate Josh Cook third and Andrew Jordan's Motorbase Performance Ford Focus fourth.

The timing is reset with five minutes on the clock after a red flag, which prompted a last minute flurry of attempts to improve when the session restarted.

With the circuit busy as drivers gambled on improving their lap times in the dying moments, none of the main players were able to make progress

Sutton said: "I went back out at the end to see if we needed to go for a time but everyone was tripping over each other. The car was magic though and I think it will be even better in the race, so I am very confident."

Behind Jordan, the third row was shared by Adam Morgan's Ciceley Racing Mercedes-Benz A-Class and Rob Austin's Handy Motorsport Toyota Avensis.

Matt Neal used slipstreaming with his team-mate Gordon Shedden to take seventh in his Honda Civic Type-R, saddled with 66kg of ballast.

Shedden, with 57kg, was 10th, behind Hunter Abbott's Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze and Aron Smith's Team BKR VW CC.

Championship leader Sam Tordoff hauled his 75kg of success ballast to 17th place in his WSR BMW 125i M Sport while his team-mate Rob Collard, also in the hunt for the title, had his fastest lap deleted for a track limits infringement and could only manage 25th.

Both of the WSR men had visited the gravel at Luffield corner earlier on in the session after a small collision between the two.

Motorbase Performance Ford Focus driver Mat Jackson, who is fourth in the standings, was a lowly 21st.

Warren Scott was fastest of the factory Subaru Levorg GTs in 13th place, with Colin Turkington and Jason Plato sharing row eight.

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap
1	Ash Sutton	Triple Eight/MG	MG	58.321s	-
2	Tom Ingram	Speedworks Motorsport	Toyota	58.324s	0.003s
3	Josh Cook	Triple Eight/MG	MG	58.467s	0.146s
4	Andrew Jordan	Motorbase Performance	Ford	58.481s	0.160s
5	Adam Morgan	Ciceley Racing	Mercedes	58.537s	0.216s
6	Rob Austin	Handy Motorsport	Toyota	58.598s	0.277s
7	Matt Neal	Dynamics/Honda	Honda	58.671s	0.350s
8	Hunter Abbott	Power Maxed Racing	Chevrolet	58.709s	0.388s
9	Aron Taylor-Smith	Team BKR	Volkswagen	58.724s	0.403s
10	Gordon Shedden	Dynamics/Honda	Honda	58.780s	0.459s
11	Jake Hill	Team Hard	Toyota	58.857s	0.536s
12	Aiden Moffat	Laser Tools Racing	Mercedes	58.876s	0.555s
13	Warren Scott	Team BMR	Subaru	58.883s	0.562s
14	Martin Depper	Eurotech Racing	Honda	58.960s	0.639s
15	Colin Turkington	Team BMR	Subaru	58.997s	0.676s
16	Jason Plato	Team BMR	Subaru	59.007s	0.686s
17	Sam Tordoff	WSR	BMW	59.014s	0.693s
18	Jack Goff	WSR	BMW	59.040s	0.719s
19	Jeff Smith	Eurotech Racing	Honda	59.055s	0.734s
20	Kelvin Fletcher	Power Maxed Racing	Chevrolet	59.080s	0.759s
21	Mat Jackson	Motorbase Performance	Ford	59.149s	0.828s
22	Daniel Welch	Welch Motorsport	Proton	59.236s	0.915s
23	James Cole	Team BMR	Subaru	59.339s	1.018s
24	Ollie Jackson	AmD Tuning	Audi	59.368s	1.047s
25	Rob Collard	WSR	BMW	59.380s	1.059s
26	Stewart Lines	Maximum Motorsport	Ford	59.428s	1.107s
27	Tony Gilham	Team Hard	Toyota	59.530s	1.209s
28	Mark Howard	Team BKR	Volkswagen	59.717s	1.396s
29	Alex Martin	Team Parker Racing	Ford	59.914s	1.593s
30	Matt Simpson	Speedworks Motorsport	Honda	1m00.615s	2.294s
31	Michael Epps	Team Hard	Toyota	1m10.976s	12.655s

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Ash Sutton takes Silverstone BTCC pole position in Triple Eight MG

Triple Eight Racing MG driver Ash Sutton took the second pole position of his British Touring Car Championship career ahead of Sunday's Silverstone round