Dave Newsham has taken a shock pole position in qualifying for the first round of the 2012 British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch.
Click here for the full Round 1 Qualifying times.
Team ES Racing’s Newsham set his fastest lap in the first half of qualifying and, despite having it later rescinded for exceeding the track limits, still managed to hold on to pole position. Matt Neal ensured a competitive start for the new Honda Civic by taking second. Rob Collard qualified third in his BMW.
Andrew Jordan will start from fourth for tomorrow’s first race, setting an identical lap time to Collard momentarily later than the eBay Motors driver. Jordan was left fuming after his final flying lap was ruined when Chris James, team-mate to Newsham, failed to get out of the way as the Pirtek Motorsport driver came charging through.
Continuing his strong form upon his return to West Surrey Racing was Tom Onslow-Cole, qualifying in fifth.
Jason Plato ensured that his new campaign with MG KX Momentum Racing got off to a strong start, with the former champion qualifying in sixth on the car’s first appearance at a BTCC race weekend.
Seventh was Rob Austin, although he had been as high as fourth in the first part of the session. Joning him on the fourth row of the grid is Dynojet’s Frank Wrathall who enjoyed another strong qualifying session to start 2012 as he ended 2011.
Gordon Shedden had not even set a lap time in qualifying at the half-way point – the Scot still enduring electrical problems that sidelined him for much of the morning. However when he eventually did get out to set some laps in anger he crept up the timesheets, lapping fast enough to go fourth until his time was disallowed for excessive use of the run-off areas. He eventually qualified in ninth, with Nick Foster joining him on the fifth row of the grid.
A difficult qualifying for home team Motorbase Performance (Redstone Racing) saw their drivers Mat Jackson, Árón Smith and Liam Griffin qualify in 11th, 14th and 17th respectively.