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.

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