Colin Turkington experiences a ‘pretty typical Saturday’

Colin Turkington described his qualifying session at Silverstone as being ‘a pretty typical Saturday’ after the Team BMW driver ended up with sixth on the grid for race one.

The Northern Irishman, carrying 57 kg of success ballast for being third in the championship heading into the meeting, had been just 25^th in first practice and 12^th in second practice before upping his pace in qualifying.

With Silverstone featuring a two-part qualifying session, Turkington was actually second quickest in Q1, just 0.069 seconds behind pace-setter Rory Butcher.

But come Q2, and with a lap time disallowed for exceeding track limits, Turkington ended up with the sixth fastest time, just over two tenths of a second off the pace.

As such, the four-time champion described it as a ‘pretty typical Saturday’ as he faces up against his main title rivals on Sunday, with Ash Sutton starting race one from eighth and Tom Ingram lining up in second for the opening encounter.

“It’s actually been a pretty typical Saturday for me with struggling a bit to get the BMW into the performance window in FP1, but making some really good gains across the day,” said Turkington.

“By qualifying, the BMW was the best it’s been all day. There was still a good layer of rubber down from the support races in Q1 so the track was a bit more grippy at that point and my time in the shoot-out was a little bit slower.

“But Stephen [Jelley] gave me a good tow in both sessions and we’re definitely in good shape to score big points.

“It’s all the usual suspects in and around me so I know tomorrow’s going to be really closely-fought.”

WSR Team Principal Dick Bennetts was pleased with the qualifying result, given that Turkington had been eight tenths of a second off the pace in first practice.

“Given where we looked to be in FP1 – with Colin in particular – today’s been a good day,” said Bennetts. “In qualifying Colin and Stephen worked very well together with the towing and that definitely benefitted both drivers in getting into the pole-position shoot-out.

“With three BMWs in the top 12 and the times so close around here we’re in a good position for the championship going into tomorrow.

“We’ll put all our energies into making sure we start race day in as good a shape as we possibly can.”