Snetterton BTCC: Jack Goff takes maiden category pole position
Eurotech Honda Civic driver Jack Goff claimed the first qualifying pole of his British Touring Car Championship career at Snetterton
Goff, who was fastest in Saturday's earlier second practice session, was one of the first front-wheel-drive cars to set a representative time. He moved to the top of the leaderboard with an initial best time of 1m56.039s a third of the way through the 30-minute session.
He then strung three fastest sectors together on his second run as he lowered his benchmark to a 1m55.786s - leaving him 0.460 seconds clear of early pacesetter Colin Turkington.
Goff returned to the pits early and, with WSR BMW 125i M Sport driver Turkington unable to improve, celebrated a maiden BTCC pole - beating his previous best of second from the Donington Park round earlier this year.
"We rolled the car out in FP1 as we'd left it after the test day [but] the car felt nothing like it had then," said Goff.
"The lads did a bit of work after FP2 and it completely transformed it."
The factory Team BMR Subaru of Ash Sutton had an initial effort that was good enough for third chalked off for exceeding track limits, but a lap with a little more than a minute of the session remaining returned him to the position behind Turkington.
Speedworks Motorsport's Tom Ingram was fourth in his Toyota Avensis, ahead of the Mercedes A-Class of Adam Morgan and Handy Motorsport's Rob Austin - who rotated at Riches shortly after his fast lap.
Andrew Jordan was seventh in his Pirtek Racing WSR BMW 125i M Sport, while Jason Plato improved to eighth with the final lap of the session in his Subaru Levorg.
Championship leader Gordon Shedden endured a tough session, and could only qualify 20th.
Saddled with the maximum 75 kilograms of success ballast, Shedden finished the session 1.657s slower than polesitter Goff.
UPDATE: Neal gains 19 places on race one grid after Honda appeal
Shedden's team-mate Matt Neal had sat as high as third in the order in the first half of the session, but his Honda Civic failed a ride height test as he returned to the pits and he subsequently had all his times deleted.
With his car raised, Neal only made it out on track for a pair of timed runs in the final five minutes, ending up 23rd.
QUALIFYING RESULTS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jack Goff | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 1m55.786s |
2 | Colin Turkington | WSR | BMW | 0.460s |
3 | Ash Sutton | Team BMR | Subaru | 0.589s |
4 | Matt Neal | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 0.829s |
5 | Tom Ingram | Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota | 0.877s |
6 | Adam Morgan | Ciceley Racing | Mercedes | 0.900s |
7 | Rob Austin | Handy Motorsport | Toyota | 1.004s |
8 | Andrew Jordan | WSR | BMW | 1.078s |
9 | Jason Plato | Team BMR | Subaru | 1.238s |
10 | Rob Collard | WSR | BMW | 1.239s |
11 | Jake Hill | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 1.271s |
12 | Michael Epps | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 1.281s |
13 | Mat Jackson | Motorbase | Ford | 1.354s |
14 | Aiden Moffat | Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes | 1.385s |
15 | Ant Whorton-Eales | AmD Tuning | Audi | 1.405s |
16 | Tom Chilton | Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall | 1.476s |
17 | Ollie Jackson | AmD Tuning | Audi | 1.489s |
18 | Josh Price | Team BMR | Subaru | 1.556s |
19 | Dave Newsham | BTC Racing | Chevrolet | 1.582s |
20 | Josh Cook | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 1.635s |
21 | Gordon Shedden | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 1.657s |
22 | Chris Smiley | BTC Racing | Chevrolet | 1.663s |
23 | Brett Smith | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 1.676s |
24 | Matt Simpson | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 1.804s |
25 | Aron Taylor-Smith | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 1.875s |
26 | James Cole | Team BMR | Subaru | 1.921s |
27 | Senna Proctor | Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall | 1.932s |
28 | Will Burns | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 2.525s |
29 | Stephen Jelley | Team Parker Racing | Ford | 2.620s |
30 | Martin Depper | Motorbase | Ford | 3.019s |
31 | Stewart Lines | Maximum Motorsport | Ford | 4.965s |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments