Daryl DeLeon tallies second successive BTCC pole position

Daryl DeLeon made it two pole positions in succession in the British Touring Car Championship as the West Surrey Racing drivers produced a sublime last-gasp lap to snare top spot in qualifying at Brands Hatch.

Having set the pace in second practice earlier in the day around the 2.43-mile Grand Prix circuit, the BMW 330i M Sport driver smashed the existing lap record to make it two pole positions on the bounce.

DeLeon’s time of 1:28.930 was a little over two tenths of a second faster than the previous qualifying lap record.

The Alliance Racing duo of Dan Cammish and Dan Rowbottom had both looked on course to snare top spot but the late charge of DeLeon meant that the Ford Focus ST drivers had to settle for second and third respectively.

Fourth place – and another driver to have sat on provisional pole at one time – was Tom Chilton, who finished ahead of his Hyundai team-mate Adam Morgan and the BMW of outgoing title holder Jake Hill.

As for the championship contenders, both Tom Ingram and Ash Sutton were able to progress out of the first portion of qualifying however with limited TOCA Turbo Boost, the pair were unable to break into the Quick Six.

Ingram emerged as the best-placed of the two protagonists as he hustled his EXCELR8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 to seventh whilst Sutton was unable to extract the maximum from his tyres and ultimately settled for 12th.

Completing the top ten behind Ingram was Charles Rainford and the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport machines of three-time champion Gordon Shedden and Aron Taylor-Smith.