Stewart Whyte dominates Super Touring qualifying

Stewart Whyte dominated qualifying for the final meeting of the HSCC Super Touring Car Trophy, supporting the British Touring Car Championship at Rockingham.

The Honda Accord driver set a time of 1:24.766 seconds, just half a second slower than the fastest time from BTCC free practice, to take pole position by a clear 1.2 seconds.

John Cleland set the early pace, lapping nearly three seconds a lap faster than the field straight out of the box, before Whyte and Patrick Watts started picking up the pace.

Watts took second at the chequered flag ahead of Cleland, with the Peugeot 406 driver being the only driver other than Whyte to set a sub-86 second lap time.

The session wasn’t without drama, however, as 2014 champion James Dodd returned to the pitlane with a driveshaft issue. James’ father Graeme, also running a Honda Accord, pitted soon after, jumping out of the car and allowing his son to go out and set a competitive time for tomorrow’s race.

The timing screens then showed Graeme Dodd in fourth, with the addition “Car 4: times disallowed after final pit stop”. James was listed in seventh on the standings, with Neil Smith and Keith Butcher taking fifth and sixth in their respective Alfa Romeos and Nissan Primeras.

Mark Smith took an early lead in his usual battle with Harry Whale, with Smith setting the eighth fastest time, 1.2 seconds clear of Whale, who had to settle for tenth with Simon Garrad’s Opel Vectra splitting the two BMWs.

“I’m happy with that, especially with the number of laps we did,” Whyte told TouringCarTimes. “It’s good to keep the tyres for the race. It felt really good out there in qualifying compared to what it did in practice. We changed a few things last night but not much. If we can try and get a wee lead tomorrow to try and hold it tomorrow for the win then that’d be good.”