Colin Turkington has taken pole position at the BTCC Brands Hatch finale to set up his race day tomorrow perfectly.
The session had intermittent rain as has fallen at the circuit for much of the day. The initial dry portion of qualifying was interrupted when Aron Smith rolled his VW CC at the exit of Hawthorns. Smith was unhurt as the incident happened after the gravel had slowed his car significantly but it caused a relatively long stoppage after which it begun to rain.
Tom Ingram was on top as the red flag came out and he was probably hoping the rain that fell would get ever heavier. Unfortunately for Ingram it eased off very quickly and with the ambient temperature being quite warm, the track hadn’t had chance to get wet and so times could improve once more.
Ingram’s team had an agonising wait as times gradually got closer to his but Ingram meanwhile was on track himself, trying to move the target the other were aiming for.
In the end it was only Turkington that went faster than the Speedworks driver as Ingram was able to improve enough to keep the rest of his rivals at bay and he was just 0.006 seconds off Turkington’s pole lap.
However, there was to be a further blow for Ingram in the post session checks when his car failed the ride height test leaving him on the back of the grid.
This promotes Rob Austin’s Toyota of Speedworks siters team, Handy Motorsport to second, their best ever qualifying as a team.
Jason Plato lines up third in his Subaru leaving Austin in a Subaru sandwich and with Subaru’s (and Plato’s) excellent starting abilities, it could well be a Subaru 1-2 by the first corner tomorrow.
Hunter Abbott’s excellent qualifying run continues here with fourth on the grid. So far this season, he hasn’t been able to get better than a top ten result from it so he’ll be hoping to finally make it count in the race tomorrow.
Josh Cook the leader of both practice sessions, could only manage fifth in this session a tenth ahead of Jack Goff’s IHG rewards Club car in sixth.
Shedden managed to take seventh in his Civic ahead of five of his rivals. With the Subarus only having an outside chance of the title, Shedden’s seventh looks positive for the Honda driver. The two Mercedes of Wix Racing and Laser Tools racing fought over the eighth with Morgan edging out Moffat. Sam Tordoff took tenth and will be looking to move up the field as he tries to protect his championship lead. Next up were championship rivals, Neal (Honda), Collard (WSR BMW) and Andrew Jordan (Motorbase Ford) all staying within the front half of the field. The only championship contender to fail to do this was Mat Jackson. He had been second the entire day but found things weren’t to his liking in qualifying and he lines up nineteenth with everything to do. It’s also a blow to his chances of taking the independent drivers championship from team mate Jordan.
Michael Epps and Ashley Sutton complete the top fifteen. Epps team mate Jake Hill was looking strong earlier in the day and despite pushing as hard as he could, the popular local driver found himself down in twentieth.
All eight championship contenders will be looking to make the best of their positions tomorrow as the first of three races get underway around the demanding Kent circuit.
No more rain is due to fall tomorrow and so with excellent weather forecast and a record number of drivers fighting for the title, Brands Hatch is well worth a visit tomorrow if you’re a fan of great racing.
Tickets are available on the gate. A pitroad walkabout takes place at ten past nine tomorrow with the first support race underway at 10am. The first BTCC race is at just after 11:30am.
If you can’t make it down, ITV4 will broadcast the entire days racing live as always with coverage of the entire championship battle.
We’ll have reports on all three races on what is sure to be an exciting day as the BTCC once again bows out in style.
Qualifying – Brands Hatch GP:
1 Colin TURKINGTON (GBR) Silverline Subaru BMR Racing 1m31.838s
2 Rob AUSTIN (GBR) Handy Motorsport +0.214s
3 Jason PLATO (GBR) Silverline Subaru BMR Racing +0.221s
4 Hunter ABBOTT (GBR) Power Maxed Racing +0.228s
5 Josh COOK (GBR) MG Racing RCIB Insurance +0.258s
6 Jack GOFF (GBR) Team IHG Rewards Club +0.366s
7 Gordon SHEDDEN (GBR) Halfords Yuasa Racing +0.482s
8 Adam MORGAN (GBR) WIX Racing +0.553s
9 Aiden MOFFAT (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +0.743s
10 Sam TORDOFF (GBR) Team JCT600 Racing with GardX +0.849s
11 Matt NEAL (GBR) Halfords Yuasa Racing +1.019s
12 Robert COLLARD (GBR) Team JCT600 Racing with GardX +1.142s
13 Andrew JORDAN (GBR) Motorbase Performance +1.247s
14 Michael EPPS (GBR) RCIB Insurance Racing +1.257s
15 Ash SUTTON (GBR) MG Racing RCIB Insurance +1.261s
16 Ollie JACKSON (GBR) AmD Tuning.com +1.541s
17 Matt SIMPSON (GBR) Speedworks Motorsport +1.563s
18 Martin DEPPER (GBR) Eurotech Racing +1.578s
19 Mat JACKSON (GBR) Motorbase Performance +1.725s
20 Jake HILL (GBR) RCIB Insurance Racing +2.065s
21 James COLE (GBR) Silverline Subaru BMR Racing +2.247s
22 Warren SCOTT (GBR) Silverline Subaru BMR Racing +2.726s
23 Aron SMITH (IRL) BKR +2.900s
24 Alex MARTIN (GBR) Dextra Racing +2.955s
25 Kelvin FLETCHER (GBR) Power Maxed Racing +3.130s
26 Tony GILHAM (GBR) TLC/RCIB Insurance Racing +3.984s
27 Dan WELCH (GBR) Goodestone Racing +4.041s
28 Mark HOWARD (GBR) BKR +5.050s
29 Jeff SMITH (GBR) Eurotech Racing +5.691s
30 Stewart LINES (GBR) Maximum Motorsport +6.428s
31 Tom INGRAM (GBR) Speedworks Motorsport – Times disallowed after failing ride height checks By Marc Waller
