Jason Plato claimed his third pole position of the 2013 British Touring Car Championship season at Silverstone, beating teammate Sam Tordoff for another MG 1-2, with Dave Newsham third in his Speedworks Toyota.
Click here for the full qualifying results.
While the session was frantic throughout, Plato set his time within the first ten minutes, quickly blitzing his previous best to set a pole position time of 58.210s to smash the previous qualifying record that he had set last year.
Tordoff’s time was just 0.009s behind that of his teammate’s, and Newsham proved that his form from the morning was no fluke by posting the third fastest time halfway through the session, a tenth and a half behind Plato. Colin Turkington yet again dragged pace from his BMW to set the fourth fastest time after struggling in practice, while Frank Wrathall was the last driver underneath Plato’s old lap record in a strong fifth place.
Jack Goff put in his most impressive performance of the season with sixth on the grid, ahead of Adam Morgan and Rob Collard. Matt Neal was the fastest of the struggling Honda cars in ninth, despite spinning at Copse having looked twitchy throughout the session. Andrew Jordan was tenth, with Gordon Shedden back in 15th after a late improvement from Dan Welch.
Plenty of drivers including Welch were penalised for exceeding track limits on the outside of Copse, but the session ran otherwise uninterrupted. The running was just as competitive as it had been earlier in the day, with Ollie Jackson in 20th within a second of pole.
Andy Neate was another surprise performer in the field after qualifying his Chevrolet Cruze in 11th, a credible 0.624s down on Plato despite missing much of the second practice session. Howard Fuller was 16th, but there was disappointment for Warren Scott as he was unable to set a time after running strongly in practice. Lea Wood once again beat Liam Griffin who was the slowest runner to set a time, with all 25 cars lapping under the one-minute barrier.
Round 25 starts at 11:57 BST on Sunday.