Andrew Jordan takes pole at snow-hit Brands Hatch

Andrew Jordan has taken pole position for the first race of the British Touring Car Championship season in a snow-affected qualifying session at Brands Hatch.

Jordan’s time of 48.387, set 10 minutes into the session, remained unbeaten due to a snow flurry which increased in intensity throughout the 30 minutes.

It made late improvements impossible, meaning the Eurotech Racing driver stayed at the top of the times in his Honda Civic, ahead of Honda Racing Team’s Gordon Shedden and Triple Eight MG’s Jason Plato.

Shedden’s team-mate Matt Neal was fourth, ahead of rookie Sam Tordoff in his first outing in the MG. Dave Newsham, Rob Austin, Jeff Smith, Nick Foster and Adam Morgan completed the top 10.

But there was misery for the returning Colin Turkington and rookie Jack Goff, whose sessions were over after just two minutes following an expensive-looking accident at Druids.

The red flags came out when Turkington spun his West Surrey Racing BMW 125i on cold tyres on the exit of Druids, and was collected by Goff, who was unable to avoid him in his Tony Gilham Racing Vauxhall Insignia.

The incident left both cars sporting heavy front-end damage, and put them out of the session.

There were also issues for Frank Wrathall, who had done a lap quick enough for sixth on the grid in his Dynojet Racing Toyota Avensis, but failed a ride height test and lost all of his times.

Lea Wood was the fastest of the Jack Sears Trophy runners in his JWT Performance Vauxhall Vectra, in 16th overall, more than a second faster than class rival James Kaye in the AmD Tuning Volkswagen Golf.

The first of the weekend’s three races takes place at 11.47am BST tomorrow.