Subaru gets first BTCC pole with Colin Turkington at Oulton Park

The Northern Irishman clocked a lap time of 1m26.264s to eclipse Dan Lloyd's Eurotech Racing Honda Civic by just 0.019 seconds.

The Japanese cars have been fitted with a new inlet manifold since the last meeting at Thruxton and have conducted a test session at Pembrey in South Wales.

Turkington, a two-time BTCC champion, said: "That is the first step for us.

"We got mileage from our test and made improvements. But I didn't think it would be that much! I was aiming for the top four or five.

"The car is a better package now - we are not all the way there yet, but we are refining it and we can go forward from here."

Behind the impressive Lloyd was Sam Tordoff's WSR BMW 125i M Sport, which shares the second row with Tom Ingram (Speedworks Toyota Avensis), whose bid for pole position was thwarted by traffic.

Reigning champion Gordon Shedden put his Team Dynamics Honda Civic fifth despite 39kg of success ballast, ahead of Turkington's BMR team-mate Jason Plato.

Ash Sutton was seventh for the Triple Eight Racing MG team, ahead of joint championship leader Matt Neal's Honda Civic.

The other points leader Rob Collard was 16th with his 66kg of ballast aboard his WSR BMW.

QUALIFYING TIMES