Chilton grabs shock pole at Brands

Chilton, who had not qualified higher than ninth all season, had laid down a marker by setting the pace in practice in his Arena Ford Focus.

He then continued his impressive form by lapping in 1m33.159s on only his second flying lap of the session, to take his first BTCC pole for two years. It was also the first time a Ford had qualified on a BTCC pole since the final round of the 2000 season.

There was some bad news for Arena as Chilton's team-mate Tom Onslow-Cole failed three ride-height tests and had all his times deleted as a result, leaving him last on the grid.

Title contenders Jason Plato and Fabrizio Giovanardi qualified second and third in their RML Chevrolet and Vauxhall respectively. Each driver was within three hundredths of a second of the pole time.

Matt Neal and Andrew Jordan made it a Vauxhall lock-out from third to fifth, ahead of Plato's team-mate Mat Jackson.

Jonathan Adam was the best BMW driver in seventh for Motorbase Performance, one place ahead of his team-mate Rob Collard and two clear of Paul O'Neill's Tech-Speed Honda.

Things were not so good for series leader Colin Turkington. The WSR BMW driver could only manage 10th on the grid with his 45kg of success ballast on-board, giving himself a difficult task to score points in Sunday's opening race.

Pos Driver                   Car             Time          Gap
 1. Tom Chilton              Ford            1m33.159s
 2. Jason Plato              Chevrolet       1m33.180s  +0.021
 3. Fabrizio Giovanardi      Vauxhall        1m33.183s  +0.024
 4. Matt Neal                Vauxhall        1m33.367s  +0.208
 5. Andrew Jordan            Vauxhall        1m33.415s  +0.256
 6. Mat Jackson              Chevrolet       1m33.618s  +0.459
 7. Jonathan Adam            BMW             1m33.645s  +0.486
 8. Rob Collard              BMW             1m33.731s  +0.572
 9. Paul O'Neill             Honda           1m33.752s  +0.593
10. Colin Turkington         BMW             1m33.805s  +0.646
11. Stephen Jelley           BMW             1m33.855s  +0.696
12. Gordon Shedden           SEAT            1m33.895s  +0.736
13. Johnny Herbert           Honda           1m34.445s  +1.286
14. David Pinkney            Honda           1m34.537s  +1.378
15. Harry Vaulkhard          Chevrolet       1m34.594s  +1.435
16. Anthony Reid             BMW             1m34.813s  +1.654
17. Matthew Hamilton         Honda           1m34.971s  +1.812
18. Martyn Bell              Honda           1m35.497s  +2.338
19. John George              Honda           1m36.346s  +3.187
20. Martin Johnson           Vauxhall        1m36.868s  +3.709
21. Tom Onslow-Cole          Ford            no time