Tom Ingram takes the Thruxton BTCC pole

Ingram takes pole (photo by Marc Waller)

Ingram takes pole (photo by Marc Waller)Tom Ingram has taken his second pole position of the year as he broke the qualifying lap record in his Speedworks Avensis with a time of 1:16.161.

But things were far from straight forward for the young driver as he had his first two attempts taken away for not keeping to track limits when it was judged he’d cut too much of the chicane. He was very happy with how things had finally ended up;

“That’s fantastic. It’s our second pole position but it was pretty stressful at first. We lost our first two laps and we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to match it. Thankfully we did and I’m delighted. Pole position is one thing, however, and it’s vital that we now go on to score some good points tomorrow.”

His rivals for pole during a baking hot session were also being penalised including Halfords Yuasa Honda driver Matt Neal who seemed to have finally got his Honda working around the Hampshire track after struggling earlier in the day. Team mate Shedden couldn’t get the same sort of time out of his Honda and he lines up eleventh.

Neal and Ingram looked set to fight it out for pole between them but in the closing stages, Aidan Moffat beat Neal’s time to take a brilliant second in his Laser Tools racing Mercedes, his best ever qualifying position.

Behind the top trio came the works MG Duo with Josh Cook ahead of Ashley Sutton. Both were only just over half a second off pole.

Adam Morgan took his Wix Racing Mercedes to sixth despite his shunt in practice one which had done substantial damage to the front of the car. His sixth just 0.650 off pole was some reward for his hard working team.

Jeff Smith delivered on the potential he has been showing this season as he took seventh, his best result since Rockingham in 2010 and he was just 0.015 seconds behind Morgan. His team mates Daniel Lloyd and Martin Depper were sixteenth and seventeenth respectively.

Jeff Smith took his best grid slot since 2010 but was pushing for more (photo by Marc Waller) Jordan gave it everything but was only eighth (photo by Marc Waller) The MG duo are inseparable as always (photo by Marc Waller) Neal found some speed in his Honda (photo by Marc Waller) Morgan repaid his teams efforts to repair his car (photo by Marc Waller)

 

 

 

Andrew Jordan gave it everything as he had been doing all day but this time it was only good enough for eighth which will be a disappointment for the Pirtek racing driver.

BKR’s Aron Smith took ninth in his VW CC, the highest car on the older specification NGTC components. Team JCT600 with GardX’s Sam Tordoff was tenth with his team mates Rob Collard in eighteenth and Jack Goff in twelfth just behind Gordon Shedden’s Honda.

Thirteenth was Colin Turkington, another driver who was clearly putting in maximum effort. He was the best of the Subaru’s with team mates Plato, Scott and Cole in twenty first, twenty eighth and Twenty ninth respectively. Mat Jackson took fourteenth in the Motorbase focus with jake Hill’s RCIB Insurance racing Toyota Avensis completing the top fifteen.

Full times are available from TSL timing;

The first race on Sunday gets underway at 12:12pm with a pitroad walkabout at ten to ten and support races during the morning before the first BTCC race. Tickets are still available on the gate and the weather forecast is warm and sunny.

If you can’t make it to the track, ITV4 will have full live coverage of the days races as always. By Marc Waller

   

Written by