Turkington takes a historic first BTCC pole for Subaru at Oulton Park

Turkington takes Subarus first pole (Photo by Marc Waller)

Turkington takes Subarus first pole  (Photo by Marc Waller)Colin Turkington has taken a historic first ever BTCC pole position for Subaru here at Oulton Park.

The Subaru’s looked on the pace from the start with Turkington setting his fastest time on only his fifth lap. He initially had team mate Plato alongside him but a late run of times dropped him lower down the top ten.

Daniel Lloyd was the best of the late lap drivers, setting second fastest time for Eurotech on his penultimate flying lap attempt. Sam Tordoff had looked set to take second for Team JCT600 with Gardx but Lloyd’s spectacular lap saw him knocked down to the second row.

He starts alongside Tom Ingram. The Speedworks Toyota driver had spent the other sessions at the top of the timesheets but his lap this time was only good enough for fourth despite being just 0.078 seconds off pole!

Honda’s Gordon Shedden was fifth for Honda having been the final driver to beat Plato’s former second position time and so Plato’s Subaru starts alongside the Scot.

Ashley Sutton’s MG is next up on row four alongside the other works Honda of Matt Neal, who did an excellent job to take eighth with a success ballast laden car. Rob Collard, the other driver with maximum success ballast could only manage sixteenth in his Team JCT600 with Gardx BMW.

Aron Smith dropped to ninth in this session, still a great result for the quick Irish driver driving for new team BKR. Josh Cook complete’s the top ten in his works MG.

The entire field is incredibly close here with pole to twenty ninth separated by just over 1.6 seconds. It was easy to have a small mistake or issue and drop much further down the field than you might otherwise be. A perfect illustration of this was Adam Morgan, who had balance issues and ended up in twenty seventh in his Wix Racing Mercedes having always made the top ten so far this season. He will have a difficult task tomorrow in trying to get back to the front.

Also struggling with car issues were the other Eurotech drivers of Jeff Smith and Martin Deppper, with their team mate up in second, they ended up in thirteenth and twentieth respectively, but both were well under a second off pole.

Jackson lost out due to a track limits penalty (Photo by Marc Waller) Adam Morgan had a nightmare (Photo by Marc Waller) Shedden took it to the limit (Photo by Marc Waller) Plato looked set for second but was pushed down to sixth (Photo by Marc Waller) Lloyd pushed  himself and his car hard - second was his reward (Photo by Marc Waller)

 

 

 

Power maxed racing’s Hunter Abbott narrowly missed out on a top ten in eleventh but was ahead of Thruxton winner Andrew Jordan who may have been slowed by his success ballast. With Jeff Smith in thirteenth, the top fifteen were completed by Aidan Moffat’s Mercedes and Jack Goff’s BMW/

Goff lost his best time for exceeding track limits and with the field being so close it dropped him to fifteenth. Mat Jackson was even more affected by his track limits penalty with the Motorbase driver’s Ford Focus dropping to twenty fifth. Alex Martin was the third and final driver to lose his best time, ending up in twenty ninth just behind Kelvin Fletcher.

A full grid of thirty two cars is due to start tomorrow’s first race which is due to get underway tomorrow at 12:17pm. The weather forecast is excellent and there are plenty of tickets available on the gate so it’s well worth the trip to Oulton Park if you’re free gates open early and there will be a pitwalk about and driver parade before the action gets underway. Plus there are lots of other attractions and trade stands to visit during the day.

If not, the full day will be on ITV4 as usual with the program starting at 11:15am and it runs all the way until 5:40pm, long enough to catch all the British Touring car action.

Full times for this session are available from the championship’s official timers, TSL timing

Whether you decide to watch in person or on tv tomorrow, it looks set to be an exciting days racing. If you are unable to get to see the races, you can catch up on all three races here. By Marc Waller

 

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