Qualifying: A double helping of Egg

"I rustled that up from my bag of large laps for the home crowd," said Thompson of the only qualifying lap under 1m26s,which puts him at the head of the field for the feature race. "I wouldn't say I could repeat that in a hurry though," admitted the Yorkshireman, whose next best lap was a full 0.439s slower and only good enough for fourth place on the grid in the Sprint.

Bennett was predictably delighted with his first BTCC pole. "I value it more than a race win," he said. "Because it's just you, the track and the stopwatch."

Bennett was particularly pleased to have set the time on a track he has only raced on once before, though he did admit that the lack of success ballast on his Astra helped. Thompson, Plato and Muller are all carrying the maximum 60kg success ballast, while Bennett has none. A couple of off-course excursions - one of which brought out the red flags for a bit of a gravel sweep-up - enlivened the midlander's session further.

Plato and Muller were both disappointed with their sessions, having set the pace in free practice. Plato reckoned a diff setting change, added to altered track conditions, had given him too much understeer, while Muller felt something had gone wrong with his diff to take the edge off his performance. In the sprint Plato will start second and Muller third, while in the feature it will be Muller second, Bennett third and Plato fourth.

Thomas Erdos and the ABG Motorsport Lexus again put the works Peugeots in the shade. The Brazilian will start fifth for both races, even though a mysterious engine problem stopped him making the progress he'd hoped for and brought his session to an early end.

Steve Soper set sixth fastest times for both races ahead of his troubled Peugeot team mate Dan Eaves. Soper was running on the current Croft layout for the first time, while an engine problem drastically cut Eaves' free practice running.

There was good news at last in the JSM Alfa fold. "Our season starts here," said team boss John Shields. Both Tim Harvey and Tom Ferrier completed a respectable number of laps over the course of the day without any engine problems.

The gremlins haven't completely gone away though. An alternator problem struck the Harvey 147 in the qualifying session and he only managed handful of laps, none at a representative pace.

Roger Moen took his first BTC Production pole of the year. The Norwegian HTML Peugeot driver hoping this will be the pre-cursor to a big end-of season charge.

"I'm happy, especially after two bad meetings for me at Knockhill and Snetterton," he said. "Now I need two wins to get me right back up there. Croft is one of my favourite circuits and all the tracks from now are good for me, so I'm looking for a strong run to the end."

Simon Graves was second quickest ahead of title contender Simon Harrison, a strong third with maximum 60kgsuccess-ballast on-board. "That's as fast as it will go with the weight," said Harrison.

Gavin Pyper in the Alfa should be another strong race contender, fourth fastest and carrying no ballast at all this weekend. James Kaye, second in the points, was happy with fifth, as gearbox problems in free practice had led to a hurried box change and incorrect ratios for the session. He carries 45kg.


1 Phil Bennett (Vauxhall) 1m26.171s
2 Jason Plato (Vauxhall) 1m26.280s
3 Yvan Muller (Vauxhall) 1m26.326s
4 James Thompson (Vauxhall) 1m26.359s
5 Thomas Erdos (Lexus) 1m27.034s
6 Steve Soper (Peugeot) 1m27.335s
7 Dan Eaves (Peugeot) 1m27.730s
8 Tom Ferrier (Alfa Romeo) 1m28.444s
9 Tim Harvey (Alfa Romeo) 2m32.026s
10 Tony Sugden (Skoda) 2m33.045s


1 James Thompson (Vauxhall) 1m25.920s
2 Yvan Muller (Vauxhall) 1m26.261s
3 Phil Bennett (Vauxhall) 1m26.371s
4 Jason Plato (Vauxhall) 1m26.391s
5 Thomas Erdos (Lexus) 1m27.274s
6 Steve Soper (Peugeot) 1m27.305s
7 Dan Eaves (Peugeot) 1m27.711s
8 Tom Ferrier (Alfa Romeo) 1m28.339s
9 Tim Harvey (Alfa Romeo) 1m29.788s


1 Roger Moen (Peugeot) 1m29.882s
2 Simon Graves (Honda) 1m30.222s
3 Simon Harrison (Peugeot) 1m30.265s
4 Gavin Pyper (Alfa Romeo) 1m30.354s
5 James Kaye (Honda) 1m30.537s
6 Mark Lemmer (Honda) 1m30.645s