Colin Turkington powers to pole at Brands Hatch in crazy dry-wet-dry qualifying
Team BMR Subaru driver Colin Turkington claimed his third pole position of the 2016 BTCC season in an unusual qualifying session, which was hit by rain after ten minutes with expectations that no improvements were likely to follow in the last half.
The session began in sunny conditions but with a rain cloud on the horizon, the first time the BTCC drivers have been out on a dry circuit today, but there was early drama for West Surrey Racing BMW driver Rob Collard, as he cut across the Indy circuit and into the pits on his out-lap with a technical issue for the team to resolve.
Mat Jackson in the Motorbase Ford set the first benchmark, which was soon beaten by the Team BMR Subaru of Jason Plato and then the Triple Eight MG of Josh Cook.
On their second laps, the same three drivers moved to the top spot again, with Jackson, Plato and then Cook again moving to the top of the time sheet in succession, but then provisional pole was snatched by Speedworks Toyota driver Tom Ingram with a time of 1:33.478. Plato and Jackson’s third laps weren’t any better than the 23-year-old’s, with Plato moving up to second and Jackson third.
With eight minutes completed, there was trouble as Aron Smith spun into the gravel at Westfield, rolling his Team BKR Volkswagen CC and landing on its roof, bringing out the red flag.
During the five-minute intermission, the threatening rain finally arrived and hit the circuit hard, mostly on the Grand Prix lop, with many drivers choosing not to even return onto the circuit when the session resumed with no expectations that no improvement was possible.
However, after the rain shower passed, the circuit began to dry really quickly, with Colin Turkington the first to make a significant improvement as he leaped from 17th to 12, and then to pole position in the Subaru Levorg GT.
The Northern Irishman continued to improve lap after lap, improving his time four more times to eventually secure pole position with a time of 1:31.838 and grab another point in his championship charge to close to 36 from Sam Tordoff.
Tom Ingram was as quick in the last segment of qualifying as he was in the first, and ended up second fastest, just six-thousandths of a second behind Turkington at the end, with Rob Austin securing a season’s best third in the Handy Motorsport-run Toyota Avensis.
Jason Plato was the second-best placed of the title contenders in fourth in his Subaru, with Hunter Abbott qualifying in fifth in the Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze.
Of the remaining title contenders, Honda’s Gordon Shedden qualified in eighth in the Civic Type R, with championship leader Sam Tordoff 11th in the BMW.
Matt Neal will start one spot further behind in 12th in his Honda, with Rob Collard recovering from his early dramas to qualify 13th, with the Motorbase Fords in the worst positions of the eight title contenders, with Andrew Jordan 14th and Mat Jackson 20th.
The first race of the weekend is scheduled to start at 11:33 BST on Sunday.
