Fords head Silverstone qualifying

Onslow-Cole went to the top of the timesheets after just seven minutes of the half-hour session with a lap of 59.659s and was never headed.

"It's a fantastic job by the team," he said. "They've been working so hard on the car and it's starting to come together."

"We had a very difficult FP1 where we went through a series of tests and none of it worked. FP2 was constructive though and we carried that through."

Onslow-Cole's team-mate Tom Chilton was 0.222s slower in second as the pair completed the first all-Ford front row since Anthony Reid and Rickard Rydell did likewise at Oulton Park 10 years ago.

Row two was an all-Chevrolet affair as Alex MacDowall, in an unballasted Cruze, again outqualified his championship-leading team-mate Jason Plato, who was carrying 45kg of success weight. Neither driver bothered with a final attempt at pole, but Plato crucially outqualified Honda's Matt Neal, his chief title rival.

Practice pacesetter Andrew Jordan was unable to replicate that form as he qualified sixth in his Eurotech Vauxhall.

Paul O'Neill gave Tech-Speed its best grid spot of the year as he put his Honda seventh, while Rob Collard (WSR BMW), James Nash (Triple 8 Vauxhall) and a disappointing Gordon Shedden (Honda) completed the top 10.

It was a bad session for the Motorbase BMW squad. Steven Kane could only manage 11th, while Mat Jackson had his times from the first 20 minutes deleted when he failed a ride-height test.

Jackson, who had been ninth at the time, dislodged part of his exhaust by running over a kerb, causing the failure. He managed to haul himself up from the back to 13th with his final two flying laps.

Series returnee Phil Glew also had a bad session due to a driveshaft problem with his Special Tuning UK SEAT. He was unable to set a time.

Martin Depper did not take part in qualifying after heavily damaging the rear end of his Forster BMW in practice. He will start Sunday's first race from the back row, alongside Martin Johnson's Boulevard Vauxhall.

Pos  Driver           Car         Time       Gap
 1.  Tom Onslow-Cole  Ford        59.659s
 2.  Tom Chilton      Ford        59.881s    + 0.222s
 3.  Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet   1m00.354s  + 0.695s
 4.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet   1m00.491s  + 0.832s
 5.  Matt Neal        Honda       1m00.528s  + 0.869s
 6.  Andrew Jordan    Vauxhall    1m00.636s  + 0.977s
 7.  Paul O'Neill     Honda       1m00.661s  + 1.002s
 8.  Rob Collard      BMW         1m00.662s  + 1.003s
 9.  James Nash       Vauxhall    1m00.863s  + 1.204s
10.  Gordon Shedden   Honda       1m00.922s  + 1.263s
11.  Steven Kane      BMW         1m01.010s  + 1.351s
12.  Tom Boardman     SEAT        1m01.038s  + 1.379s
13.  Mat Jackson      BMW         1m01.191s  + 1.532s
14.  David Pinkney    Vauxhall    1m01.221s  + 1.562s
15.  John George      Honda       1m01.352s  + 1.693s
16.  Andy Neate       BMW         1m01.590s  + 1.931s
17.  Lea Wood         Honda       1m02.056s  + 2.397s
18.  Arthur Forster   BMW         1m02.220s  + 2.561s
19.  Shaun Hollamby   Volkswagen  1m02.369s  + 2.710s
20.  Philip Glew      SEAT