Colin Turkington downplays qualifying performance

Colin Turkington was quick to downplay his performance in qualifying for the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season opener at Brands Hatch.

With Team BMR only completing the new Subaru Levorgs in the days leading up to the race weekend, the opening meeting of the year has become a very public test session for the cars; three of which only turned laps for the first time in a brief shakedown at the track on Friday evening.

Turkington was the fastest of the BMR quartet in free practice but none of the cars was expected to make much of an impression on the times in qualifying as the team continues to work on the first stage of its test and development programme.

However, a fine lap from the former champion in the closing stages saw him lap within half a second of pole man Tom Ingram and put the Levorg eleventh on the grid for race one.

“I’m not sure that is our true pace to be honest,” he said. “I really had to put my neck on the line for it and there is no way that I could do 24 laps like that! The boys have done a great job to get the cars ready for this weekend and considering where we are, it’s fantastic to be so close to the top ten.

“However, while we all believe in the potential of the car, there is only so much we can do on a race weekend when it comes to making changes to learn and understand it – we know it’s going to take us time.

“Although we hope we go the right way in terms of the set-up for tomorrow, it’s going to be a huge step into the unknown in terms of how the car will perform in a race.”