Jason Plato snatched pole from Gordon Shedden with a last-gasp effort

The battle boiled down to a fight between the works Chevrolet Cruzes and Honda Civics.

Gordon Shedden's Civic set the first benchmark time, his 1m58.716s lap topping the timesheets for much of the session.

Alex MacDowall was quicker than team-mate Plato on the first run, but a minor fuel leak-related fire in the pits ended his run.

Plato failed to beat Shedden and MacDowall on his second run, but decided to go for a third effort. This time he managed to capture pole by just 0.025 seconds as Shedden failed to improve with his response.

"Pole for us for the rest of the year is so important," said Plato. "We've got a quick car in clean air and we can win from the front."

Running more ballast than his rivals, championship leader Matt Neal couldn't quite get on terms with the top three, but was still fourth, a quarter of a second behind Plato.

Best of the rest was James Nash in his Triple 8 Vauxhall Vectra, just ahead of Tom Chilton's Arena Motorsport Ford Focus.

Frank Wrathall scored the best qualifying result yet for an NGTC car. A late effort took his Dynojet Toyota Avensis to seventh on exactly the same time as Chilton's Focus.

Championship contenders Andrew Jordan (Eurotech Vectra) and Mat Jackson (Motorbase Ford Focus) struggled for one-lap pace, finishing 11th and 13th respectively.

The new Welch Automotive-run Proton Gen-2 qualified 20th for its BTCC debut, Daniel Welch setting a time just 2.2 seconds off pole.

Pos  Driver           Team/Car              Time       Gap
 1.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet             1m58.691s                                 
 2.  Gordon Shedden   Honda                 1m58.716s  + 0.025s                       
 3.  Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet             1m58.908s  + 0.217s                       
 4.  Matt Neal        Honda                 1m58.939s  + 0.248s                       
 5.  James Nash       Triple 8 Vauxhall     1m59.067s  + 0.376s                       
 6.  Tom Chilton      Arena Ford            1m59.084s  + 0.393s                       
 7.  Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota        1m59.084s  + 0.393s                       
 8.  Dave Newsham     Special Tuning SEAT   1m59.252s  + 0.561s                       
 9.  Paul O'Neill     Tech-Speed Chevrolet  1m59.420s  + 0.729s                       
10.  Tom Onslow-Cole  Arena Ford            1m59.515s  + 0.824s                       
11.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Vauxhall     1m59.558s  + 0.867s                       
12.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW               1m59.664s  + 0.973s                       
13.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford        1m59.809s  + 1.118s                       
14.  Rob Austin       Austin Audi           1m59.931s  + 1.240s                       
15.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Vauxhall     2m00.026s  + 1.335s                       
16.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW               2m00.161s  + 1.470s                       
17.  Tony Gilham      Triple 8 Vauxhall     2m00.303s  + 1.612s                       
18.  Andy Neate       Arena Ford            2m00.356s  + 1.665s                       
19.  Martyn Byford    AmD Volkswagen        2m00.531s  + 1.840s                     
20.  Daniel Welch     Welch Proton          2m00.910s  + 2.219s                     
21.  John George      Tech-Speed Chevrolet  2m02.117s  + 3.426s                       
22.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford        2m02.374s  + 3.683s                       
23.  Lea Wood         Central Honda         2m03.421s  + 4.730s                       
24.  Tony Hughes      Speedworks Toyota     2m04.544s  + 5.853s                     
25.  Chris James      ES Chevrolet          No time                                   
26.  Tom Boardman     Special Tuning SEAT   No time