Turkington gives new BMW first pole

Colin Turkington gave WSR’s NGTC BMW its first British Touring Car pole by topping a dramatic qualifying session at Croft.

Problems early on and the pace of the Honda Civic meant it did not look as though Turkington would quite be in the hunt for pole.

Instead Matt Neal’s works Honda Civic and then the Eurotech example of Andrew Jordan set the pace, with Jordan the first going under 1m25s.

Neal moved back to the front with 1m24.630s before Jason Plato’s works MG broke the Croft BTCC qualifying record with 1m24.613s.

After an off early in the session, reigning champion Gordon Shedden moved into third before Turkington finally recorded a competitive lap to go fourth.

Joe Girling’s S2000 Chevrolet Cruze then crashed, bringing out the red flags with four minutes remaining.

Turkington worked his tyres hard on his out-lap after the session resumed and, despite an off for a Motorbase Ford Focus that was running ahead of him, the 2009 champion kept his nerve to snatch pole with 1m24.465s.

At the same his team-mate Rob Collard improved to sixth, with Plato, Neal, Shedden and Jordan filling the spaces in-between.

WSR boss Dick Bennetts said: “BMWs have always been good here, it’s somewhere the rear-wheel-drive works well.”

Frank Wrathall’s Dynojet Toyota Avensis was seventh from Sam Tordoff, who suffered a driveshaft failure on his MG6 during practice.

BTCC debutant Jake Hill led the S2000 runners early on in Motorbase’s old Focus, but Lea Wood pipped him in his Vauxhall Vectra before the red flag.

The results remain provisional as several cars, including Plato and the three top Hondas, are under investigation for exceeding the track limits.

Pos  Driver            Team/Car           Time       Gap
  1.  Colin Turkington  WSR BMW            1m24.465s
  2.  Jason Plato       MG                 1m24.613s  +0.148s
  3.  Matt Neal         Honda              1m24.630s  +0.165s
  4.  Gordon Shedden    Honda              1m24.706s  +0.241s
  5.  Andrew Jordan     Eurotech Honda     1m24.756s  +0.291s
  6.  Rob Collard       WSR BMW            1m24.819s  +0.354s
  7.  Frank Wrathall    Dynojet Toyota     1m25.143s  +0.678s
  8.  Sam Tordoff       MG                 1m25.276s  +0.811s
  9.  Tom Onslow-Cole   Hard VW            1m25.321s  +0.856s
 10.  Adam Morgan       Ciceley Toyota     1m25.374s  +0.909s
 11.  Mat Jackson       Motorbase Ford     1m25.424s  +0.959s
 12.  Nick Foster       WSR BMW            1m25.503s  +1.038s
 13.  Dave Newsham      Speedworks Toyota  1m25.591s  +1.126s
 14.  Jeff Smith        Eurotech Honda     1m25.592s  +1.127s
 15.  Michael Caine     Motorbase Ford     1m25.785s  +1.320s
 16.  Aron Smith        Motorbase Ford     1m25.899s  +1.434s
 17.  Jack Goff         Hard Vauxhall      1m26.083s  +1.618s
 18.  Rob Austin        Austin Audi        1m26.112s  +1.647s
 19.  Will Bratt        Austin Audi        1m26.201s  +1.736s
 20.  Ollie Jackson     Speedworks Toyota  1m26.384s  +1.919s
 21.  Daniel Welch      Welch Proton       1m26.611s  +2.146s
 22.  Lea Wood          Wood Vauxhall      1m26.746s  +2.281s*
 23.  Jake Hill         Motorbase Ford     1m27.208s  +2.743s*
 24.  David Nye         Welch Ford         1m28.373s  +3.908s*
 25.  James Cole        Hard Vauxhall      1m28.421s  +3.956s
 26.  Joe Girling       Finesse Chevrolet  1m29.140s  +4.675s*
 27.  James Kaye        AmD VW             1m29.282s  +4.817s*
 28.  Warren Scott      BMR SEAT           1m29.322s  +4.857s*
 
* S2000
 

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/other-news/touring-cars/btcc/turkington-gives-new-bmw-first-pole

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