Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Silverstone BTCC: Cammish dominates to take second consecutive pole position

Honda ace Dan Cammish blitzed qualifying at Silverstone to take his second consecutive British Touring Car Championship pole position

Cammish set no fewer than four laps good enough for pole in his Team Dynamics-run Civic Type-R, which is carrying 36kg of success ballast.

He had already set a 57.465s on his first run when he lowered that to a 57.349s on his second shot, and he also stamped in a 57.536s on a final run, all this through intermittent drizzle that made conditions tricky.

That put him a large, by Silverstone National Circuit standards, 0.198 seconds clear of the Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla of Tom Ingram.

Just as at Thruxton last weekend, Cammish and Ingram will therefore share the front row, although that resulted in two Ingram wins after Cammish struggled with his starts.

"It's a hell of a gap around here," Cammish told Autosport regarding his pole margin.

"My lap in FP2 was good, and I knew there was a little more to come on better tyres. The track grip wasn't quite as good, but the new-tyre grip counted.

"My plan is to get a good night's sleep and get that bloody thing off the line!"

Ingram, who is carrying 48kg of ballast, left it until moments before the chequered flag to set his time.

"Dan's obviously a little bit nervous of his starts because he keeps talking about them," he said. "So I'll keep bringing them up!"

While the gap for Cammish was immense, the following four were covered by just 0.010s, with Ingram heading Rory Butcher, Colin Turkington and Tom Oliphant.

Butcher, on 42kg of ballast in his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus, had looked spectacular all day without really troubling the frontrunners until he popped up in third position towards the end of the session.

The rear-wheel-drive West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330i M Sports of Turkington and Oliphant went on what was effectively a 16-lap race run in the cold conditions, during which they were attempting to tow each other around.

Turkington, on 54kg of ballast, improved to fourth to pip Oliphant (30kg), although Oliphant had an earlier time good enough for the front row deleted due to breaching track limits.

Matt Neal, in the second Honda, was in the top four for most of the session before the late improvements relegated him to sixth, although that was sufficient to head championship leader Ash Sutton, carrying the maximum 60kg of ballast on his Laser Tools Racing Infiniti Q50.

Sutton will share the fourth row with the Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes A-Class of Adam Morgan.

Two more Hondas line up on the fifth row: Tom Chilton's BTC Racing Civic and the older FK2-spec car of MB Motorsport's Jake Hill.

The session was red-flagged before any serious times were set when Jack Butel, attempting to weave heat into the tyres of his Ciceley Mercedes on the Wellington Straight, careered into the Trade Price Cars Audi of James Gornall.

Gornall parked on the grass on the exit of Brooklands with collapsed right-front suspension, which meant he failed to set a time.

Silverstone BTCC qualifying results

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Dan Cammish Team Dynamics Honda 57.349s
2 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 0.198s
3 Rory Butcher Motorbase Performance Ford 0.201s
4 Colin Turkington WSR BMW 0.203s
5 Tom Oliphant WSR BMW 0.208s
6 Matt Neal Team Dynamics Honda 0.254s
7 Ash Sutton Laser Tools Racing Infiniti 0.314s
8 Adam Morgan Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 0.324s
9 Tom Chilton BTC Racing Honda 0.345s
10 Jake Hill AmD Tuning Honda 0.370s
11 Ollie Jackson Motorbase Performance Ford 0.388s
12 Josh Cook BTC Racing Honda 0.466s
13 Carl Boardley Team Hard BMW 0.525s
14 Stephen Jelley Team Parker Racing BMW 0.528s
15 Aiden Moffat Laser Tools Racing Infiniti 0.546s
16 Senna Proctor Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai 0.569s
17 Sam Osborne AmD Tuning Honda 0.574s
18 Jack Goff Team Hard Volkswagen 0.660s
19 Bobby Thompson Trade Price Cars Racing Audi 0.723s
20 Jack Butel Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 0.738s
21 Tom Onslow-Cole Team Hard Volkswagen 0.836s
22 Chris Smiley Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai 0.843s
23 Michael Crees BTC Racing Honda 0.883s
24 Andy Neate Motorbase Performance Ford 0.922s
25 Nicolas Hamilton Team Hard Volkswagen 1.064s
26 Jade Edwards Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall 1.282s
27 James Gornall Trade Price Cars Racing Audi -



Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article BTCC Silverstone: Cammish leads Honda 1-2 in free practice
Next article Autosport 70: How a great battle kickstarted touring cars' best era

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe