Qualifying: Bennett bags a brace

Bennett, who missed the last round at Oulton Park through suspension, bounced back with the Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra team to match the feat of Oulton stand-in Andy Priaulx.

With 10 minutes to go, Bennett and Jason Plato's works Vauxhall shared a pole position apiece. Bennett then doubled up, only for Yvan Muller, in the other factory Astra, to swipe the sprint race pole away. Then came a tremendous last lap effort from the rookie which netted him both of the bonus points for pole positions.

"With the time that put us on pole at the end I was quite lucky, because the tyres had already done six laps," said a relieved Bennett. "To be fair to the lads, I'm on pole twice, but when you have a 60kg advantage it's to be expected."

Bennett also knows he must grasp this opportunity to take his maiden BTCC victory. "I have to get a win for my career," he said. "If I don't get the job done soon I'll be eating corned beef for the rest of my life."

Title contenders Plato and Muller ended up sharing a second and third place apiece, despite an off at Copse Corner for the former. "I was looking all right until I didn't have the talent to match my speed through Copse," quipped the Briton.

For the second meeting running, James Thompson, in the second Egg Vauxhall, and Peugeot's Steve Soper alternated fourth and fifth places. While Soper's performance was a typical banzai effort, Thompson was mystified at losing time since free practice. "The car felt fine," he said, "and I'm a bit down about it really."

Taking a solid sixth was Anthony Reid in the first of the MGs. "This car is great fun to drive," he smiled. "Just on a personal note I'm disappointed not to be closer. But the chassis is excellent and the engine has tremendous potential. I hope it flags up to other manufacturers that you can come in here with a moderate budget compared to what we had before."

Dan Eaves and Warren Hughes, the second drivers for Peugeot and MG respectively, lost time with driveshaft problems (Eaves) and an oil leak on the intercooler (Hughes). Both were outpaced by the Lexus of Thomas Erdos, which is sporting suspension geometry further revised since Oulton.

Bringing up the rear are the Alfa Romeos, on which the set-up could not be perfected on either car. Tim Harvey also had clutch failure, meaning he had to be in radio contact with the pits to make sure another car was on the scrutineers' weighbridge any time he came in!

A dramatic Production qualifying session had both Barwell Hondas, the returning Simon Graves ahead of James Kaye, on the front row when the flag came out. But in an eleventh hour attack the Peugeots of Roger Moen (HTML) and Paul O'Neill (Techspeed) swept around in formation to grab the top two spots on the final lap.

Moen, carrying 54kg to the 60 of title rivals Kaye and Simon Harrison (his team mate) felt that it was a matter of waiting for a clean lap, the ballast making it difficult to get the braking right for the tighter corners. O'Neill paid tribute to Moen's assistance, but admitted to over-emotion in front of the TV cameras: "Roger did help me and I thanked him, but at the end of the day I had to pedal the thing myself. The only thing is, after the session finished I was crying on telly like a dickhead!"

Graves did a tremendous job on his comeback to just edge Kaye. Of the latter's ballasted performance, Barwell team boss Mark Lemmer said: "With 60kg that is an incredible time."

Poor old Harrison only had time for an out lap at the end of the session. After a problem in free practice the team changed everything on the car, including the engine, but ran out of time. Harrison will therefore start both races from the back of the grid.



1 Phil Bennett (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe), 1m27.866s
2 Yvan Muller (Vauxhall Astra Coupe), 1m27.898s
3 Jason Plato (Vauxhall Astra Coupe), 1m28.156s
4 Steve Soper (Peugeot 406 Coupe), 1m28.563s
5 James Thompson (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe), 1m28.573s
6 Anthony Reid (MG ZS), 1m29.152s
7 Thomas Erdos (TMSR Lexus IS200), 1m29.436s
8 Warren Hughes (MG ZS), 1m29.844s
9 Dan Eaves (Peugeot 406 Coupe), 1m30.427s
10 Tim Harvey (JSM Alfa Romeo 147), 1m30.901s
11 Mark Blair (JSM Alfa Romeo 147), 1m31.125s

1 Bennett, 1m27.936s
2 Plato, 1m27.966s
3 Muller, 1m28.021s
4 Thompson, 1m28.425s
5 Soper, 1m28.559s
6 Reid, 1m28.941s
7 Erdos, 1m29.222s
8 Hughes, 1m29.940s
9 Eaves, 1m29.946s
10 Harvey, 1m30.669s
11 Blair, 1m31.310s

1 Roger Moen (HTML Peugeot 306), 1m32.724s
2 Paul O'Neill (Techspeed Peugeot 306), 1m32.765s
3 Simon Graves (Barwell Honda Accord), 1m32.959s
4 James Kaye (Barwell Honda Accord), 1m33.060s
5 Mat Jackson (GR Ford Focus), 1m33.313s
6 Gavin Pyper (GA Janspeed Alfa Romeo 156), 1m33.316s