Chilton on top again at Brands

The Arena Ford driver had been quickest in practice and carried that form through to qualifying by lapping the Grand Prix circuit in 1m31.604s a third of the way into the session in his LPG-powered Focus.

"This is all for the team and a measure of just how hard they've worked," said Chilton. "Right then it was almost an absolutely perfect lap - even the wind direction was going in my favour."

For much of the session his rivals struggled to get within a second of Chilton's time, but second placed Honda driver Gordon Shedden was able to make a significant improvement late on and close to within 0.471s of pole.

James Nash equalled his best BTCC grid spot in third in his Triple 8 Vauxhall while Matt Neal found a similar amount of time to his team-mate Shedden and climbed to fourth late on.

Rob Collard gave the WSR BMW squad its best qualifying result of the year in fifth, ahead of Alex MacDowall, who was again Chevrolet's top performer.

Championship leader Jason Plato qualified seventh with Andrew Jordan one place further back, but the Eurotech Vauxhall driver's session was ended early as he got his car stuck in the gravel at Clearways with three minutes to go.

Tom Onslow-Cole had been lying third during the first half of the session, but had his times deleted when he failed a ride-height test. After getting back out onto the circuit near the end, he put his Arena Ford ninth. Paul O'Neill's Tech-Speed Honda completed the top 10.

David Pinkney overcame an engine problem in practice to qualify his Pinkney Vauxhall a season's best 12th, but it was a bad session for the Motorbase BMWs, Mat Jackson and Steven Kane qualifying 13th and 14th.

Further back, BTCC debutants Lea Wood (Wood Honda) and Martin Depper (Forster BMW) qualified 17th and 20th respectively.

Pos  Driver           Car         Time       Gap
 1.  Tom Chilton      Ford        1m31.604s
 2.  Gordon Shedden   Honda       1m32.075s  + 0.471s
 3.  James Nash       Vauxhall    1m32.415s  + 0.811s
 4.  Matt Neal        Honda       1m32.424s  + 0.820s
 5.  Rob Collard      BMW         1m32.463s  + 0.859s
 6.  Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet   1m32.473s  + 0.869s
 7.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet   1m32.619s  + 1.015s
 8.  Andrew Jordan    Vauxhall    1m32.703s  + 1.099s
 9.  Tom Onslow-Cole  Ford        1m32.720s  + 1.116s
10.  Paul O'Neill     Honda       1m32.844s  + 1.240s
11.  Tom Boardman     SEAT        1m32.907s  + 1.303s
12.  David Pinkney    Vauxhall    1m32.921s  + 1.317s
13.  Mat Jackson      BMW         1m32.983s  + 1.379s
14.  Steven Kane      BMW         1m32.997s  + 1.393s
15.  Matt Hamilton    Honda       1m34.158s  + 2.554s
16.  Andy Neate       BMW         1m34.164s  + 2.560s
17.  Lea Wood         Honda       1m34.291s  + 2.687s
18.  John George      Honda       1m34.319s  + 2.715s
19.  Shaun Hollamby   Volkswagen  1m35.376s  + 3.772s
20.  Martin Depper    BMW         1m36.031s  + 4.427s
21.  Arthur Forster   BMW         1m36.151s  + 4.547s
22.  Martin Johnson   Vauxhall    1m36.224s  + 4.620s