Rydell pleased to be at the front

The Volvo driver produced pole performance on his second run, eclipsing the earlier efforts of Nissan's chargers.

After the session, he said, 'We made some changes during the session because I wasn't very happy with the balance on my first run, but I knew there was more time in the car.

'Obviously I'm pleased to be back at the front of the grid and even more so because I did it on my second run with only two new tyres.

'We need to capitalise on our advantage over the Nissans here, because the Volvo is better suited to the high speed corners of Thruxton than to some of the other circuits.'

David Leslie and Laurent Aiello had shared provisional pole for most of the session and were eventually separated by just four thousandths of a second.

With Leslie joining Rydell on the front row of the grid, both drivers will be keen to record a first race win of the season to kick-start their 1999 title campaigns, while row two is made up of Silverstone race-winners Aiello and Renault star Jason Plato.

Leslie said of his second place, 'I'm not too upset. I'm on the front row and the Nissan is in P2 and P3.

'My lap was a little too exciting. I arrived at the chicane quicker than I had this morning and ran wide over the grass on the exit.

'It was all a bit scrappy and I was quite happy to get away with it and still set a competitive time, because it probably cost me a half a second.'

The Nissan of Matt Neal was first in the Michelin Cup for Independents. He commented, 'After this morning's warm-up, I thought there was a little more in the car, but I had problems on my new tyres.

'On my first flying lap, there were waved yellow flags around, so when I came up behind a slowing Honda I didn't dare go past him, so I backed off. The next lap I lost some time at the chicane which was my fault, so we're pretty much happy with row four."