Andrew Jordan has secured pole position in today’s Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship qualifying session at Thruxton.
Having dominated in this morning’s two practice sessions, Jordan’s time of 1:16:192 – which knocks Yvan Muller’s 2002 lap record off the chart – was enough to give him his third Thruxton pole in as many years.
In a Honda lock-out, the Yuasa Racing duo of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden line up second and third on the grid, whilst Mat Jackson claimed fourth in his Airwaves Racing Focus.
Tom Ingram had a successful session in his Speedworks Motorsport Avensis, achieving fifth place ahead of the two MGs of Sam Tordoff and Jason Plato, who had to settle for sixth and seventh respectively despite initially heading the field in the early stages.
Rob Collard worked hard to claim eighth at his local track for eBay Motors, with Colin Turkington recovering from his FP2 incident to finish in 13th ahead of James Cole, whose United Autosports outlet’s hard work to build up an ex Tony Hughes Avensis after their disastrous round at Donington.
Chrome Edition Restart’s Alain Menu had a good run to claim ninth ahead of Adam Morgan’s Wix Racing Mercedes which rounded out the top ten.
Aron Smith in the second Chrome Edition Volkswagen made it out on track for some installation laps after his FP1 crash saw him miss the second practice session of the day – however he will line up at the back of the field for tomorrow’s opening race.
The first race of the day is set to get underway just after 12:00 on ITV4, who will be bringing you live coverage of the day’s three races.
GR will bring you brief race reports during the day, with a detailed round-up analysis on Bank Holiday Monday.
Qualifying Classification:
1. Andrew Jordan
2. Matt Neal
3. Gordon Shedden
4. Mat Jackson
5. Tom Ingram
6. Jason Plato
7. Sam Tordoff
8. Rob Collard
9. Alain Menu
10. Adam Morgan
11. Jack Goff
12. Fabrizio Giovanardi
13. Colin Turkington
14. James Cole
15. Nick Foster By Nikki Thompson, photos by Marc Waller
