Knockhill BTCC: Andy Priaulx wins frantic pole fight for WSR BMW

The three-time world champion's first ever BTCC pole came at the Scottish track in 2002, and he pulled a record-breaking 51.671-second lap out of the bag with less than a minute remaining to top qualifying for the second time in his comeback season.

Priaulx had run second to Motorbase driver Mat Jackson for the majority of the session, which was punctuated by two red-flag periods.

Jackson held provisional pole from Priaulx and Matt Neal when the red flags were required after Jeff Smith spun at Scotsman and Dan Welch's suspension failed at Duffus Dip moments apart from each other.

When the session resumed Jackson immediately improved to a 51.659s, but lost the time for exceeding track limits.

Priaulx set a 51.873s to chisel Jackson's advantage to just three-hundredths of a second, while a flurry of improvements included Sam Tordoff moving into the pole fight.

Home favourite and practice pacesetter Gordon Shedden looked set to rise from fifth to do the same as he set two good sector times - but his lap was ruined by Honda team-mate Matt Neal spinning off through Duffus Dip and winding up in the gravel at Leslie's.

That brought out the second red flag, setting up a four-minute shootout for pole.

Shedden was first to improve, going third on a 51.924s before Tordoff went quickest on a 51.823s.

Priaulx left it even later though to eclipse his WSR team-mate, while Rob Collard made it three 125i M Sports in the top four by joining Jackson on the second row.

Shedden was shuffled back to fifth, and will be joined on row three by Rob Austin, who has been much happier in his team's Audi A4 this weekend.

Neal, MG's Andrew Jordan, the lead Team BMR Volkswagen CC of Colin Turkington and Adam Morgan's Ciceley Mercedes completed the top 10.

Turkington's championship-leading team-mate Jason Plato had a miserable session, winding up 22nd - despite lapping only 0.771s off the pace with his 75kgs of ballast.

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