Gordon Shedden has taken a surprise pole in BTCC qualifying at Snetterton after an engine change in practice had curtailed much of his running.
It’s Honda’s first pole since Donington 2013 and he broke the qualifying lap record in the process. Several of the field also produced lap times under the old record leaving the fight for pole an incredibly close battle.
Turkington’s best effort was just 0.011 seconds slower and he starts alongside in the Silverline Subaru Levorg. Adam Morgan tried his best to steal pole in the Wix Racing Mercedes but his lap fell short and he starts third.
Shedden couldn’t have been happier;
“Pole position! I didn’t expect it but I’m delighted, I can think of worse places to start. It’s only one point for today though and we desperately need a big points haul tomorrow.”
He continued;
“It’s been a bit random today. We hardly passed go and collected 200 quid in practice but we got everything together for qualifying. We didn’t have time to change things around much but maybe out of the box is the best way. It was a really, really good lap and it all came together – it was absolutely fantastic.”
The next three were three tenths off the pole battle but had their own battle for fourth. That went to Tom Ingram’s Speedworks Toyota ahead of Mat Jackson’s Motorbase Ford Focus. Motorbase celebrate their 300th Touring car race this weekend and Jackson was trying hard; going onto two wheels over the ‘sausage’ kerbs. Team mate Jordan failed to show after power steering issues so he will start last. Behind Ingram and Jackson in sixth place was Power Maxed Racing’s Hunter Abbott starting a best ever sixth position. It seems Abbott has adjusted well to front wheel drive having on raced rear wheel drive before. Sixth was an excellent reward for his seasons effort. He will be hoping to escape trouble this weekend, at Croft an excellent grid slot came to nothing when he had contact on the first lap. If he can avoid this he looks set for his best BTCC result to date.
Aron Smith ended up seventh in his BKR VW CC, the best of the older specification NGTC cars using the previous GPRM built parts instead of the latest RML built items.
Ashley Sutton was the best of the works MG’s in eighth just ahead of Matt Neal in the other works Honda, not able to match the pace of Shedden. Sutton’s team mate Cook was twelfth
Championship leader Sam Tordoff completed the top ten with his nearest championship rival, WSR team mate Rob Collard, struggling in eighteenth after being off the pace all day.
“We lost all balance in the car,” he said. “We changed things significantly for qualifying and it didn’t work out, so I’m absolutely devastated at the moment. The mechanical part of the car is fine and between me and the engineer we decided to go this way with the car and it didn’t work. I’ll have him in a headlock later on!”
Eurotech’s Martin Depper went off into the barriers and team mate Jeff Smith struggled for pace with a shoulder issue, they ended up twenty seventh and twenty second respectively.
Jason Plato was eleventh in the second of the Silverline Subarus but all four were within the top fifteen with James Cole thirteenth and Warren Scott fifteenth. Completing the top fifteen was Aidan Moffat in fourteenth.
Thirty one cars are due to start tomorrows races with race one getting underway at 11:32am. There is a pitwalk and driver signing session during the lunchbreak and tickets are available on the gate.
Full times from the qualifying session are on TSL timing here; By Marc Waller
