Bobby Thompson thrilled by “mega day” at Croft

Bobby Thompson was delighted to secure his best qualifying result by far in the BTCC after putting his Trade Price Cars Audi in fifth place on the grid at Croft.

Thompson, who heads the Jack Sears Trophy going into the weekend, had never previously qualified higher than 15th but showed strong pace through the two free practice sessions to go into qualifying chasing a maiden top ten result.

Immediately settling his quickest time of the day, Thompson then moved onto provisional pole in his Audi S3 only to then lose the time for exceeding track limits at the Jim Clark Esses.

After two red flag stoppages, Thompson would end up seventh quickest before making up two spots due to penalties ahead – giving him his best qualifying result and also scoring the best result for the car

“It’s been a mega day,” he said. “It’s my best qualifying result to date and I’m 99% ecstatic and 1% annoyed as we could have been up on pole had I not lost a time to track limits. However, P5 is incredible for us.”

Thompson put the improved form down to work carried out at Silverstone last time out, and also being able to deal well with the wet conditions in qualifying.

“We made some changes at Silverstone that worked in race three and when we got here, we have been able to build on that,” he said. “We had some wet footage from last year that I could look at before qualifying and from that, you can see that the circuit has a lot of grip and there is not a big difference from wet line to dry line. I knew where I had to put the car from the moment I went on track and we were able to get a top result.

“The aim is to try and stay in this position and even if we drop back a bit, I’ll be happy with a top ten. I don’t want to get carried away and set my sights too high, but the real focus is on the Jack Sears Trophy and keeping my lead.”