Qualifying: Priaulx king of the 'Hill

The Channel Islander made light of the fact that the Scottish track is several lines of longitude north of his homeland by excelling around the twists and plunges of the 1.3-mile circuit in his Alan Docking Racing Dallara-Mugen Honda.

In the second session, a smooth performance from Anthony Davidson put the Carlin Motorsport Dallara-Mugen ace on pole position and bumped Priaulx down to the outside of the front row for the second race.

Priaulx has always shone in the wet and, with Knockhill's unique characteristics favouring a soft set-up relatively close to that used in slippery conditions, it was no surprise that he leapt out of a mid-season lull to top the times.

"We've all worked bloody hard and made a breakthrough," he said. "This game is very humbling - you've just got to work at it. We've gone through the finger-pointing stage now and I think we'll have a good end to the season. I did two laps good enough for pole and then I came in to save the tyres for the race."

Davidson, who crashed at the chicane on the last lap of the first session (in which he was fourth), said after the afternoon period: "I just felt there was more grip from the car. This track is all about getting that lap together and I found two of them. It's the sort of track where you string it all together or make one massive mistake."

Runaway championship leader Takuma Sato was mildly disappointed to end the day second on the grid for race one and third for race two. "People were trying so hard and there were so many yellow flags," said Carlin's Japanese ace. "I just couldn't get a good rhythm."

Ah yes, the yellow flags. The exit of the chicane turned into a dead-car park in the second session. First Jamie Spence slammed into the barriers. Shortly afterwards James Courtney followed suit. Then Jeffrey Jones went in and finally Matt Davies - despite trying a neat piece of backwards-in parallel parking - just couldn't avoid Jones's car and ended up damaging his gearbox casing and diffuser.

It was only at this point - right at the end of the session - that the officials took a much belated decision to red-flag the session.

Courtney actually had a pretty good day to take third for race one and fourth for race two in his Jaguar Dallara, while Davies is also in the top six for both races, raving about the effectiveness of new Penske shock absorbers on his Avanti Dallara.

Manor Motorsport got Mark Taylor into sixth in session one and Jones fifth later on, but for lead driver Derek Hayes it was a disappointing day. He spun into the gravel at the hairpin in the morning, then seemed to struggle more than the others in the afternoon when the bollards at the chicane were quickly removed by an errant car. Everyone changed their line, but for Hayes it led only to bottoming and a number of lairy moments.

In the Scholarship Class, Ernani Judice excelled to take pole position for both races. Robbie Kerr and Matt Gilmore proved his closest challengers.




Andy Priaulx (Alan Docking Racing Dallara-Mugen) 47.069s
Takuma Sato (Carlin Motorsport Dallara-Mugen) 47.148s
James Courtney (Jaguar Racing Dallara-Mugen) 47.194s
Anthony Davidson (Carlin Motorsport Dallara-Mugen) 47.310s
Matt Davies (Team Avanti Dallara-Opel) 47.379s
Mark Taylor (Manor Motorsport Dallara-Mugen) 47.411s
Andre Lotterer (Jaguar Racing Dallara-Mugen) 47.504s
Derek Hayes (Manor Motorsport Dallara-Mugen) 47.524s
Bruce Jouanny (Promatecme Dallara-Mugen) 47.552s
Jeffrey Jones (Manor Motorsport Dallara-Mugen) 47.670s
Ernani Judice (Parker Racing Dallara-Mugen)


Davidson 47.429s
Priaulx 47.489s
Sato 47.606s
Courtney 47.707s
Jones 47.767s
Davies 47.826s
Gianmaria Bruni (Fortec Dallara-Renault) 47.886s
Hayes 47.895s
Lotterer 47.922s
Jouanny 48.009s
Judice