Jason Plato snatches pole for his 500th race in final seconds of qualifying

Subaru’s Jason Plato took pole position for his 500^th British Touring Car Championship race in qualifying at Knockhill, snatching the top spot from Speedworks’ Tom Ingram in the final seconds of qualifying.

The top spot had been held by Ingram until the final seconds of the session, when the ballast-free Plato stormed to the top of the times with a lap just 0.021 seconds faster than the Toyota driver.

Ingram was thus forced to settle for second, denied what would have been his third pole position of the season, whilst Plato scored his first pole in a rear-wheel drive car.

WSR’s Sam Tordoff took third in his rear-wheel drive BMW, a mere 0.009 seconds further back, despite having himself been on top of the times with just under five minutes of the original time to go before the red flags flew for a second time.

That resulted in the clock being reset to five minutes, allowing the entire field more time to improve their laps. Jack Goff was one of those to improve, putting his BMW in fourth and securing his best qualifying result of the year.

Colin Turkington was fifth fastest and just 0.098 seconds away from his team-mate, ahead of Motorbase Performance’s Andrew Jordan in sixth, who was caught out by a brake disc fire late in the session.

Matt Neal took seventh on the grid with his best performance of the day in the leading Honda, ahead of WIX Racing’s Adam Morgan in eighth.

Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin scored his first top ten result in qualifying this year with ninth, whilst series returnee Dave Newsham completed the top ten in his Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet.

Local circuit employee Gordon Shedden had a torrid time in qualifying, experiencing a turbo boost leak which cost him time and left him 11^th fastest.

Aiden Moffat put his Mercedes in 12^th to end up directly behind his two fellow Scotsmen at his home event.

Championship leader Rob Collard, who is known to struggle in qualifying, could only manage 18^th in his WSR BMW, leaving him with an uphill task for Sunday.

An early red flag in the session was caused by the AmD Tuning car of Ollie Jackson, who was left down in 31^st on the grid as a result when he beached his Audi in the gravel at Clark’s Curve.

Qualifying times

POS	NO	CL	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	99	M	Jason PLATO		Silverline Subaru BMR Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	28	51.521
2	80		Tom INGRAM		Speedworks Motorsport	Toyota Avensis	23	51.542	0.021
3	600	C	Sam TORDOFF		Team JCT600 with GardX	BMW 125i M Sport	26	51.551	0.030
4	31	C	Jack GOFF		Team IHG Rewards Club	BMW 125i M Sport	27	51.567	0.046
5	4	M	Colin TURKINGTON		Silverline Subaru BMR Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	27	51.619	0.098
6	77		Andrew JORDAN		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus	22	51.818	0.297
7	25	M	Matt NEAL		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	22	51.880	0.359
8	33		Adam MORGAN		WIX Racing	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	21	51.899	0.378
9	11		Rob AUSTIN		Handy Motorsport	Toyota Avensis	23	51.912	0.391
10	71		David NEWSHAM		Power Maxed Racing	Chevrolet Cruze	22	51.958	0.437
11	52	M	Gordon SHEDDEN		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	18	51.983	0.462
12	16		Aiden MOFFAT		Laser Tools Racing	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	26	51.984	0.463
13	116	M	Ashley SUTTON		MG Racing RCIB Insurance	MG6GT	21	52.015	0.494
14	20	M	James COLE		Silverline Subaru BMR Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	28	52.062	0.541
15	7		Mat JACKSON		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus	24	52.105	0.584
16	30		Martin DEPPER		Eurotech Racing	Honda Civic Type R	23	52.106	0.585
17	66	M	Josh COOK		MG Racing RCIB Insurance	MG6GT	21	52.127	0.606
18	100	C	Rob COLLARD		Team JCT600 with GardX	BMW 125i M Sport	26	52.165	0.644
19	24		Jake HILL		RCIB Insurance Racing	Toyota Avensis	24	52.190	0.669
20	12		Mike EPPS		RCIB Insurance Racing	Toyota Avensis	24	52.269	0.748
21	39	M	Warren SCOTT		Silverline Subaru BMR Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	20	52.289	0.768
22	55		Jeff SMITH		Eurotech Racing	Honda Civic Type R	21	52.350	0.829
23	40		Árón SMITH		BKR	Volkswagen CC	20	52.366	0.845
24	53		Hunter ABBOTT		Power Maxed Racing	Chevrolet Cruze	22	52.407	0.886
25	303		Matt SIMPSON		Speedworks Motorsport	Honda Civic Type R	24	52.457	0.936
26	17		Dan WELCH		Goodestone Racing	Proton Persona	25	52.517	0.996
27	88		Michael CAINE		TLC Racing	Toyota Avensis	24	52.616	1.095
28	14		Alex MARTIN		Dextra Racing with Team Parker	Ford Focus	23	52.932	1.411
29	95		Stewart LINES		Maximum Motorsport	Ford Focus	26	52.942	1.421
30	38		Mark HOWARD		BKR	Volkswagen CC	22	53.468	1.947
31	48		Ollie JACKSON		AmD Tuning	Audi S3	3	53.923	2.402

Complete session results