Rory Butcher delights Knockhill crowd with maiden pole

Rory Butcher gave the Knockhill fans reason to cheer after securing his maiden pole position in the British Touring Car Championship at his home circuit.

The Cobra Sport AmD driver had been the man to beat throughout free practice at the circuit owned by his father Derek, and carried his pace into qualifying as the previous track record was smashed by more than a second.

Butcher hadn’t been able to get a quick lap in in the early stages of the session before an off for Mark Blundell and the need to remove gravel from the circuit at Clarks saw the red flags thrown out.

However, when the session resumed, Butcher quickly made his move to the front and his best time of 50.451s saw him more than two-tenths of a second clear of the pack behind.

Last season’s pole-sitter Dan Cammish would be the closest challenger to the Scot at the wheel of his FK8 Honda, with Andrew Jordan just behind in third place.

That result for the West Surrey Racing man leaves him well placed going into race day as he looks to try and close in on the championship leader Colin Turkington, who will start the opening race of the weekend from sixth. Between the two BMW drivers, Tom Chilton was a solid fourth in his Motorbase-run Ford Focus, with Senna Proctor enjoying his best qualifying performance of the season by far in his Subaru Levorg.

That marked the first time this season that Proctor has qualified inside the top ten since his move to BMR over the winter, and the first in which he has outqualified Ash Sutton in the sister car. Sutton will start race one down in 14th.

Behind Turkington, Tom Oliphant was seventh quickest, with the top ten completed by Adam Morgan, Chris Smiley and Matt Neal.

Amongst those to suffer issues in the session, Jason Plato was down in 15th after a trip through the gravel at the chicane, whilst Josh Cook had to settle for 20th spot in the second of the BTC Racing Honda Civics.