Colin Turkington: “I’m not thinking about the championship”

Pole-sitter Colin Turkington says finals day at Brands Hatch will be about scoring as many points as possible but “realistically” he isn’t thinking about a championship challenge.

The Team BMR driver made the best of the changing conditions to take pole position in qualifying this afternoon, and with the point that comes with it he has closed to within 36 points of West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff.

But the double champion says his focus for race day will just be about moving forward in the standings, rather than going for outright glory.

“It’s just another day and another weekend for us. Realistically I’m not thinking about the championship, 36 points is too many over six other drivers,” said Turkington to TouringCarTimes.

“My focus is trying to move up from where I am now and finish as high up as I can. It’s been a great day and the car has been fast in all conditions, so it’s really nice to take that last pole of the year.”

After an early red flag following a roll for Team BKR’s Aron Smith, a period of steady rainfall had made further improvements look unlikely. However, it was the Northern Irishman who mastered the conditions on slicks better than his rivals to make a number of significant improvements.

Assessing the second half of the session, Turkington said: “I knew I had to take a chance and be brave, as I think I was down in 18th after the red flag and it started to rain again.

“I thought I was in big trouble and when I went out on slicks, it felt a bit hopeless because it was too wet.

“But I knew my only chance was to build temperature as quickly as I could and thankfully it stopped raining, and I got a little bit quicker with each lap. I had nothing to lose really.”

Turkington will now line up alongside Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin on the front row for race one, following the exclusion of Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram for failing a ride height test.