Colin Turkington takes independents’ pole at Shanghai

Colin Turkington has taken pole position in the independents’ class for the first race tomorrow, and narrowly missed out on the overall pole position at the Tianma circuit in Shanghai.

The 29-year-old from Northern Ireland, running in the Wiechers-Sport BMW 320 TC for the third time this year with technical support from British team West Surrey Racing, went quicker than the Chevrolet drivers after their first run in the final segment of qualifying with a lap of 1:05.712, before Rob Huff and Alain Menu fought back later in the session to go faster by less than two-tenths of a second.

“The car’s been good all weekend and the WSR engineers have just been chipping away at improving it,” said Turkington. “The BMW was at its best in that qualifying session and I feel we’ve got a really good car for racing too, although it’s going to be tough to overtake as the circuit is very tight.”

“I’m really pleased to be starting in such a good position as our sponsor, Aviva-Cofco, have got a lot of guests here tomorrow, so I’ll be looking forward to their support and putting on a good show for them.”

WSR Team Principal Dick Bennetts added: “It was a great result for Colin and the whole Aviva-Cofco team. The WSR guys have been working really hard all weekend on the setup of the BMW and this is a reward for their efforts.”

Turkington will start third on the grid for the first race tomorrow behind Alain Menu and Rob Huff with the rival BMW of Norbert Michelisz alongside, whilst he will provisionally start seventh on the reversed grid for the standing start race two, the top placed BMW driver in both races.