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Croft BTCC: BMR Subaru gets another pole with Colin Turkington

Colin Turkington secured a second straight British Touring Car Championship pole position for BMR's new Subaru Levorg with a dominant performance in qualifying at Croft

In a session split in half by a stoppage following a clash between the Honda of Matt Neal and Rob Collard's BMW at Hawthorn, Turkington proved to be in a class of his own, setting no fewer than four laps that would be good enough for pole.

Neal reprimanded for qualifying collision

Hitting the front just eight minutes into the session with the first sub-1m24s lap of the weekend, Turkington improved twice when qualifying resumed after the red flag period only to see both laptimes removed for exceeding track limits.

As the chequered flag flew, the two-time champion was able to post what would be his best lap of the session, with a 1m23.608s leaving him almost four tenths of a second clear of his nearest challenger.

"I've always enjoyed Croft no matter what I'm in," he said. "We've improved the Subaru again and big thanks to the guys for giving me a quick car."

Building on his impressive performance in practice, Dan Lloyd secured second place in his Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type-R on his final flying lap to demote Ashley Sutton to third.

The MG driver recovered from a spin exiting Hawthorn and then a lurid slide at the Complex to end up just 0.003s shy of the front row.

Sutton had looked set to improve on his final lap when he set a personal best through the first sector, but then slowed later in the lap and would require a push from marshals to get back into the pits.

Jason Plato in the second of the BMR-run Subarus was fourth quickest with championship leader Sam Tordoff again making light of the success ballast on his BMW 125i M Sport to be quickest of the West Surrey Racing drivers, sharing row three of the grid with team-mate Jack Goff.

Hunter Abbott left it to the final seconds to secure his best qualifying result to date with seventh in his Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet.

Andrew Jordan was unable to match his practice pace in eighth. His Motorbase team-mate Mat Jackson and the Ciceley-run Mercedes A Class of Adam Morgan rounded out the top 10.

The late changes towards the head of the field prevented Jake Hill from earning a top 10 starting position in his Team HARD Toyota despite spending the first half of the session on the provisional front row, while there was disappointment for defending champion Gordon Shedden who lines up down in 14th place.

Collard and Neal meanwhile will start from 16th and 17th following their coming together, having both been well placed inside the top 10 prior to the stoppage.

QUALIFYING TIMES

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap
1 Colin Turkington Team BMR Subaru 1m23.608s -
2 Daniel Lloyd Eurotech Racing Honda 1m24.005s 0.397s
3 Ash Sutton Triple Eight/MG MG 1m24.008s 0.400s
4 Jason Plato Team BMR Subaru 1m24.020s 0.412s
5 Sam Tordoff WSR BMW 1m24.053s 0.445s
6 Jack Goff WSR BMW 1m24.068s 0.460s
7 Hunter Abbott Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet 1m24.071s 0.463s
8 Andrew Jordan Motorbase Performance Ford 1m24.184s 0.576s
9 Mat Jackson Motorbase Performance Ford 1m24.229s 0.621s
10 Adam Morgan Ciceley Racing Mercedes 1m24.253s 0.645s
11 Jake Hill Team Hard Toyota 1m24.289s 0.681s
12 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 1m24.311s 0.703s
13 Rob Collard WSR BMW 1m24.332s 0.724s
14 Aron Taylor-Smith Team BKR Volkswagen 1m24.381s 0.773s
15 Gordon Shedden Dynamics/Honda Honda 1m24.433s 0.825s
16 Rob Austin Handy Motorsport Toyota 1m24.457s 0.849s
17 Matt Neal Dynamics/Honda Honda 1m24.523s 0.915s
18 Josh Cook Triple Eight/MG MG 1m24.663s 1.055s
19 Michael Epps Team Hard Toyota 1m24.669s 1.061s
20 Aiden Moffat Laser Tools Racing Mercedes 1m24.721s 1.113s
21 Warren Scott Team BMR Subaru 1m24.827s 1.219s
22 Ollie Jackson AmD Tuning Audi 1m24.859s 1.251s
23 Martin Depper Eurotech Racing Honda 1m24.930s 1.322s
24 Daniel Welch Welch Motorsport Proton 1m25.050s 1.442s
25 James Cole Team BMR Subaru 1m25.060s 1.452s
26 Jeff Smith Eurotech Racing Honda 1m25.081s 1.473s
27 Alex Martin Team Parker Racing Ford 1m25.125s 1.517s
28 Matt Simpson Speedworks Motorsport Honda 1m25.350s 1.742s
29 Kelvin Fletcher Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet 1m25.624s 2.016s
30 Chris Smiley Team Hard Toyota 1m25.909s 2.301s
31 Stewart Lines Maximum Motorsport Ford 1m26.754s 3.146s
32 Mark Howard Team BKR Volkswagen 1m26.935s 3.327s


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