Rory Butcher thrilled by second straight pole

Rory Butcher will hope for improved luck on race day at Oulton Park after securing his second successive pole position in Saturday’s qualifying session.

The Motorbase driver snared pole last time out at Brands Hatch but then suffered a puncture whilst leading race one that prevented him from securing a certain race win – and was hit by a similar issue in race three.

The Ford team has worked to resolve the issues that caused the failures ahead of this weekend’s event, and Butcher repaid them in fine style as he came out on top of a battle with the Honda of Josh Cook to take pole by just 0.089s.

The Scot will now hope for a strong haul of points to make up ground in the title race and said he was confident of some solid results.

“I’m delighted with today as it isn’t easy to get two poles in the BTCC – never mind two in a row,” he said. “We’re thrilled and it has given us the best chance possible for the races tomorrow. We have to put our focus on a good start, and then try to bring it home.

“It was a typical session and you don’t usually see people with a big advantage over the others; you expect it to be close like that. The team told me there were various people swapping times for top spot, and we just had enough in the bag in the final few minutes.

“We are learning the car at quite a rate and are starting to understand what we can and can’t do set-up wise. The tyres looked in good shape after qualifying, and we’ll make a few changes ahead of tomorrow and go for some good finishes.”