Matt Neal claims his first British Touring Car pole of 2012

With clouds threatening, Neal and his rivals took the track during the early minutes to bank lap times and the Honda Civic ace made the most of his first set of tyres to take top slot. He recorded a time of 1m24.900s (90.10mph).

"Given the fact that everyone else has been given more turbo boost because of a rule tweak, the Honda drivers are having to really make the most out of the corners," said Neal. "That's OK for one lap, but it will be a different story in the races."

The reigning champion led two other Hondas. The privately run Eurotech machine of Andrew Jordan was 0.137 seconds away from the polesitter, while Gordon Shedden put his works machine in third place.

Frank Wrathall took a season's best of fourth on the grid after working through refinements to a brand new set-up on the Dynojet Toyota Avensis over the course of the day. He was delighted with the performance.

"Given the amount of work we've done over the free practice sessions, that's a great effort for everyone in the team," said Wrathall.

Double champion Jason Plato was denied a late attempt for pole position when the electrics failed on his MG, which left him stranded on the circuit in the dying moments. He was pushed back into the pitlane but had to rely on his earlier lap time, which was good enough for fifth position.

Pos  Driver           Team/Car           Time       Gap
 1.  Matt Neal        Honda              1m24.900s
 2.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Honda     1m25.037s  + 0.137s
 3.  Gordon Shedden   Honda              1m25.114s  + 0.214s
 4.  Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota     1m25.156s  + 0.256s
 5.  Jason Plato      MG                 1m25.221s  + 0.321s
 6.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW            1m25.371s  + 0.471s
 7.  Rob Austin       Austin Audi        1m25.410s  + 0.510s
 8.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford     1m25.461s  + 0.561s
 9.  Andy Neate       MG                 1m25.580s  + 0.680s
10.  Tom Onslow-Cole  WSR BMW            1m25.589s  + 0.689s
11.  Adam Morgan      Speedworks Toyota  1m25.814s  + 0.914s
12.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Honda     1m26.060s  + 1.160s
13.  Aron Smith       Motorbase Ford     1m26.079s  + 1.179s
14.  Daniel Welch     Welch Proton       1m26.123s  + 1.223s
15.  Dave Newsham     ES Vauxhall        1m26.133s  + 1.233s
16.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW            1m26.388s  + 1.488s
17.  Lea Wood         Central Vauxhall   1m26.420s  + 1.520s
18.  Paul O'Neill     Speedworks Toyota  1m26.564s  + 1.664s
19.  Tony Gilham      Gilham Honda       1m26.845s  + 1.945s
20.  Ollie Jackson    AmD Volkswagen     1m26.965s  + 2.065s
21.  Will Bratt       Austin Audi        1m27.078s  + 2.178s
22.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford     1m27.440s  + 2.540s
23.  Chris James      ES Vauxhall        1m28.757s  + 3.857s