Colin Turkington snatches pole position in qualifying shootout

Colin Turkington bagged his second British Touring Car Championship pole position of the season in the new two-part format at Snetterton, edging out MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill in the final shootout.

Turkington, who had been four tenths off the top time in Q1, mastered the cool conditions in the short ten-minute second half of qualifying to deny Hill a maiden pole position, as he used his rear-wheel drive BMW to his advantage.

With just ten minutes permitted in Q2, and a long lap time of around two minutes, Turkington was always going to be in a favourable position through not having to pit for his front and rear tyres to be changed over.

In the end that allowed Turkington more flying laps, and he beat Hill to pole by almost two tenths of a second.

Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram, on pole last year, was third quickest in his Toyota, two tenths off the pace.

Rory Butcher had been quickest in Q1, but the Motorbase driver could only manage fourth in the all-important Q2 session.

Honda’s Dan Cammish was the last driver to get up to speed, having taken time to build temperature in his tyres on a circuit which had a track temperature of just ten degrees.

In the end the title contender could only manage fifth, Cammish being three tenths from pole.

Championship leader Ash Sutton was sixth in the fastest Infiniti, ahead of BMW’s Tom Oliphant in seventh, who had only just scraped through to the second part of qualifying with an improvement in the dying seconds of Q1.

Motorbase’s Ollie Jackson, Laser Tools Racing’s Aiden Moffat and Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan completed the top ten, although the latter never managed to post a trye flying lap and ended up almost seven seconds off the pace.

Excelr8 Motorsport’s Senna Proctor had looked set to progress to Q2 until a late improvement from Oliphant left the Hyundai racer in 11^th at the team’s home circuit.

BTC Racing’s josh Cook was likewise a driver who just missed out on Q2, the Honda driver having repeatedly flirted with the top ten times before ending up in 12^th, the last driver within a second of the Q1 pace.

Honda’s Matt Neal was inside the top ten early on in Q1, but he spun on the exit of Coram near the end of the first part of qualifying, leaving him with dirty tyres and a lack of momentum to progress and down in 16^th.

Paul Rivett was the best of the four drivers either débuting or returning to the grid this weekend, putting his TradePriceCars Audi in 20^th.

Race one on Sunday is scheduled to get underway at 10:37 GMT (11:37 CET). European readers are urged to note the change of clocks overnight on Saturday.

Q2 results

POS	NO	CL	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	1	M	Colin TURKINGTON		Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	5	1:56.858	0.000
2	24	I	Jake HILL		MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Honda Civic Type-R	5	1:57.050	0.192
3	80	M	Tom INGRAM		Toyota Gazoo Racing UK with Ginsters	Toyota Corolla	5	1:57.068	0.210
4	6	I	Rory BUTCHER		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus ST	5	1:57.083	0.225
5	27	M	Dan CAMMISH		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	5	1:57.194	0.336
6	116	I	Ashley SUTTON		Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	5	1:57.319	0.461
7	15	M	Tom OLIPHANT		Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	4	1:57.493	0.635
8	48	I	Ollie JACKSON		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus ST	4	1:57.546	0.688
9	16	I	Aiden MOFFAT		Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	5	1:57.639	0.781
10	32	I	Adam MORGAN		Carlube Triple R Racing with Mac Tools	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	5	2:03.740	6.882

Q1 results

POS	NO	CL	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	6	I	Rory BUTCHER		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus ST	9	1:57.247	0.000
2	32	I	Adam MORGAN		Carlube Triple R Racing with Mac Tools	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	10	1:57.430	0.183
3	116	I	Ashley SUTTON		Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	12	1:57.531	0.284
4	80	M	Tom INGRAM		Toyota Gazoo Racing UK with Ginsters	Toyota Corolla	8	1:57.547	0.300
5	16	I	Aiden MOFFAT		Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	11	1:57.623	0.376
6	15	M	Tom OLIPHANT		Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	12	1:57.641	0.394
7	1	M	Colin TURKINGTON		Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	10	1:57.648	0.401
8	24	I	Jake HILL		MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Honda Civic Type-R	9	1:57.665	0.418
9	48	I	Ollie JACKSON		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus ST	10	1:57.681	0.434
10	27	M	Dan CAMMISH		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	11	1:57.688	0.441
11	18	I	Senna PROCTOR		Excelr8 Motorsport	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	10	1:57.856	0.609
12	66	I	Josh COOK		BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	10	1:58.059	0.812
13	22	I	Chris SMILEY		Excelr8 Motorsport	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	10	1:58.389	1.142
14	3	I	Tom CHILTON		BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	10	1:58.421	1.174
15	12	I	Stephen JELLEY		Team Parker Racing	BMW 125i M Sport	11	1:58.425	1.178
16	25	M	Matt NEAL		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	10	1:58.517	1.270
17	777	I	Michael CREES		The Clever Baggers with BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	10	1:58.729	1.482
18	4	I	Sam OSBORNE		MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Honda Civic Type-R	11	1:58.790	1.543
19	31	I	Jack GOFF		RCIB Insurance Racing with Fox Transport	Volkswagen CC	10	1:58.860	1.613
20	222	I	Paul RIVETT		GKR TradePriceCars.com	Audi S3	10	1:58.986	1.739
21	41	I	Carl BOARDLEY		Team HARD.	BMW 125i M Sport	10	1:59.404	2.157
22	39	I	Jessica HAWKINS		Power Maxed Car Care Racing	Vauxhall Astra	10	1:59.465	2.218
23	44	I	Andy NEATE		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus ST	11	1:59.501	2.254
24	88	I	Glynn GEDDIE		RCIB Insurance Racing with Fox Transport	Volkswagen CC	10	2:00.604	3.357
25	23	I	Ethan HAMMERTON		GKR TradePriceCars.com	Audi S3	11	2:00.746	3.499
26	32	I	Jack BUTEL		Carlube Triple R Racing with Mac Tools	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	11	2:00.942	3.695
27	28	I	Nicolas HAMILTON		ROKiT Racing with Team HARD.	Volkswagen CC	3	No time	N/A