Croft BTCC: Turkington claims second pole for Subaru

Eurotech Racing’s Daniel Lloyd replicated the top two from the last race at Oulton Park, with the privateer Honda driver qualifying right behind the 2009 and 2014 champion.

Turkington led the way throughout the whole of the 30-minute session, putting the Subaru Levorg GT of Team BMR at the top of the time sheets on his first lap, and continued to improve his times throughout to stay ahead of the chasing field.

At the rear-wheel drive favouring circuit, Turkington’s closest competition initially came from Subaru team-mate Jason Plato and the West Surrey Racing of Sam Tordoff, with the BMW driver having qualified on pole position at Croft last year.

There was a late improvement from Triple Eight Racing’s Ashley Sutton, who put his MG 6 GT in second with just over ten minutes to go, before Lloyd, who’d topped the time sheets in Free Practice 2, put his Honda Civic second fastest on his final lap before the chequered flag. Sutton would have to settle for third, and Plato fourth at the end of the session.

Championship leader Sam Tordoff would qualify in fifth position ahead of his West Surrey Racing BMW team-mate Jack Goff, with Hunter Abbott qualifying seventh in the Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze, with the Motorbase Fords of Andrew Jordan and Mat Jackson eighth and ninth, and Adam Morgan’s Ciceley Racing Mercedes completing the top ten.

The session wasn’t without incident, with a number of laps deleted by the officials due to track limits.

Qualifying was also red flagged halfway through after the Team Dynamics Honda of Matt Neal and West Surrey Racing BMW made contact at Hawthorns, with both cars unable to continue due to damage and would tumble down the time sheets, with Collard 16th and Neal 17th.

“Matt just closed the gap, I moved over and I left him stacks of room up the inside and then he just ran into the inside of me,” said Collard.

“He’s apologised to me, but I’m very frustrated. We could easily have been top five here today. “

Turkington’s best lap of 1:23.608 came in the final minutes of the session, and with a margin of four-tenths of a second, meant the Ulsterman was unstoppable, with the same margin covering the next 15 cars.

“No matter what car I’ve been in I’ve gone well here,” said Turkington. “A big thanks to the guys, they gave me a great car.”

Neil Hudson / TouringCarTimes