BTCC Brands Hatch: Cammish secures stunning pole from Turkington

As the seconds ticked down in a soggy top-10 Q2 shootout, it appeared that Colin Turkington would secure pole position in his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport.

Turkington’s team-mate Jake Hill was first to flash across the line at the chequered flag, and recorded a time to propel himself onto the front row just 0.006 seconds adrift.

But Cammish, who had pitted for a new set of front tyres, was on an absolute stonker in his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST – the Yorkshireman was last across the line after the flag, and demolished Turkington’s time by 0.271s.

That came despite Cammish, as championship leader, carrying the biggest restriction on usage of the hybrid power boost – he was allowed one second per lap deployed at a minimum speed of 135km/h, compared to Turkington on 11s/125km/h and Hill on 5s/135km/h.

“I was a little bit shocked when I crossed the finish line,” said Cammish.

“We kept thinking about the track and the conditions, and we aborted our previous lap to fit the fresh set of fronts.

“It was a bit of luck, but then again it was ‘here’s the switch you’ve been asking for’. With the car I’ve got underneath me, I feel anything’s possible.”

With a strong lap time underneath him early on, Cammish’s team-mate Ash Sutton sat out large swathes of the red-flag-infested Q1, but had to take to the track late on to cement his place in the top 10.

But despite having the full 15s of hybrid available at a minimum 115km/h, Sutton could only manage fourth fastest in Q2.

Nicolas Hamilton, Go-Fix with Autoaid Breakdown Cupra Leon and Adam Morgan, Team BMW BMW 330e M Sport

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Rory Butcher, after numerous visits to the gravel trap at Paddock Hill Bend, squeaked through to Q2 at the last gasp when a new set of tyres was fitted to his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport, and he then went fifth on the grid.

The Scot will share the third row with Bobby Thompson, who has been quick all day and looked a cert throughout for Q2 in his Team Hard Cupra Leon.

Reigning champion Tom Ingram ended up seventh in his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N, while Josh Cook lightly hit the barriers at Clearways and finished eighth in the lead One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R.

The top 10 was completed by Dan Lloyd’s Hard Cupra and Excelr8 Hyundai BTCC rookie Ronan Pearson, who did a fine job to make Q2 on only his second outing in the series by edging out veteran team-mate Tom Chilton by 0.001s.

Q1 was topped by Hill from Sutton and Turkington – the last-named put in a good time after twice spearing off onto the grass at Graham Hill Bend.

There were numerous incidents, and the first red flag was caused by Nick Halstead’s Excelr8 Hyundai getting pitched into the gravel trap at Paddock after contact with George Gamble’s Speedworks Toyota.

The second occurred after Nic Hamilton spun his Team Hard Cupra and came to rest at the bottom of Paddock; Adam Morgan then spun his WSR BMW and performed a series of pirouettes before smashing into the unfortunate Hamilton.

The third stoppage was caused by Will Powell understeering off into the tyre wall at Druids in his One Motorsport Honda.

The highest-profile casualty from Q1 was Donington polesitter Dan Rowbottom, who just couldn’t get the handling of his Motorbase Ford to suit him and ended up 16th. To make matters worse, a three-place grid penalty for a Donington incident with Aiden Moffat means he will start 19th.

BTCC Brands Hatch qualifying results:

Cla	Driver	Time	Gap
1	Dan Cammish	54.297
2	Colin Turkington	54.568	0.271
3	Jake Hill	54.574	0.277
4	Ashley Sutton	54.638	0.341
5	Rory Butcher	54.709	0.412
6	Bobby Thompson	54.802	0.505
7	Tom Ingram	54.964	0.667
8	Josh Cook	54.985	0.688
9	Daniel Lloyd	55.056	0.759
10	Ronan Pearson	55.328	1.031
11	Tom Chilton	55.001	0.704
12	Aron Taylor-Smith	55.099	0.802
13	Jack Butel	55.117	0.820
14	Ricky Collard	55.210	0.913
15	Dexter Patterson	55.214	0.917
16	Daniel Rowbottom	55.250	0.953
17	George Gamble	55.356	1.059
18	Stephen Jelley	55.376	1.079
19	Jade Edwards	55.428	1.131
20	Andrew Watson	55.440	1.143
21	Aiden Moffat	55.503	1.206
22	Mikey Doble	55.781	1.484
23	Sam Osborne	56.148	1.851
24	Adam Morgan	56.814	2.517
25	Nicolas Hamilton	57.195	2.898
26	Will Powell	57.672	3.375
27	Nick Halstead	58.118	3.821
View full results