Neal takes pole for BTCC opener

The double champion's best time in the first half of the session was good enough for pole, but he improved later to top the grid for tomorrow's race with a 48.210s effort.

"I've been Mr Glum all morning, but we managed to get a good qualifying run," said the Team Dynamics driver, who is running the Neil Brown-prepared turbo engine in his Civic for the first time.

Andrew Jordan, who set the pace throughout free practice in his Eurotech Racing Vauxhall Vectra, will join Neal on the front row. He recorded a 48.465s in the TOCA-engined machine.

Reigning champion Jason Plato pushed hard in his RML-run Chevrolet Cruze, almost going off at Clearways, and took third with less than three minutes to go. He was almost 0.4 seconds away from Neal's time.

Alex MacDowall looked set join his team-mate on the second row, but was pipped on the last lap by Triple 8 Engineering driver James Nash.

Mat Jackson made it four marques and five teams in the top six with a late 48.667s effort in his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus.

Arena Motorsport Ford Focus driver Tom Chilton set a time good enough for second in the first half of the session, but his 48.384s effort was disallowed when he failed a ride height check.

The team worked hard to rectify the problem and Chilton returned to the track for the final eight minutes. He managed a best of 48.668s to take seventh, just ahead of Tom Boardman's Special Tuning SEAT Leon.

Frank Wrathall was the fastest of the new NGTC machines, taking 20th in his Dynojet Toyota Avensis. David Pinkney's NGTC Audi A4 did not emerge from the Rob Austin Racing garage to qualify.

Pos  Driver           Team/Car              Time     Gap
 1.  Matt Neal        Honda                 48.210s
 2.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Vauxhall     48.465s  + 0.255s
 3.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet             48.583s  + 0.373s
 4.  James Nash       Triple 8 Vauxhall     48.623s  + 0.413s
 5.  Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet             48.658s  + 0.448s
 6.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford        48.667s  + 0.457s
 7.  Tom Chilton      Arena Ford            48.668s  + 0.458s
 8.  Tom Boardman     Special Tuning SEAT   48.752s  + 0.542s
 9.  Paul O'Neill     Tech-Speed Chevrolet  48.849s  + 0.639s
10.  Andy Neate       Arena Ford            49.036s  + 0.826s
11.  Tony Gilham      Triple 8 Vauxhall     49.045s  + 0.835s
12.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW               49.130s  + 0.920s
13.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Vauxhall     49.176s  + 0.966s
14.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford        49.220s  + 1.010s
15.  Dave Newsham     Geoff Steel BMW       49.248s  + 1.038s
16.  Tom Onslow-Cole  AmD Volkswagen        49.540s  + 1.330s
17.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW               49.587s  + 1.377s
18.  John George      Tech-Speed Chevrolet  50.065s  + 1.855s
19.  Chris James      ES Chevrolet          51.169s  + 2.959s
20.  Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota        51.449s  + 3.239s
21.  Tony Hughes      Speedworks Toyota     51.736s  + 3.526s
22.  Gordon Shedden   Honda