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Tom Onslow-Cole hails ‘fantastic’ result at Brands Hatch

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Tom Onslow-Cole was delighted after taking his first pole position in two years and the first pole for his Ebay Motors/West Surrey Racing team in three years at Brands Hatch.

The 25-year-old showed pace all day in practice and qualifying, running strongly in the drying second free practice session where he ended up second fastest behind Andrew Jordan, who would end up being his chief rival for pole position.

After losing all his times set early in qualifying after failing to be able to restart his BMW 320si in the scrutineering bay, Onslow-Cole went on to take his first pole since 2010 at Silverstone, when he was driving for Arena Motorsport in the LPG-powered Focus Focus ST.

Onslow-Cole held pole position throughout the last ten minutes of qualifying, before Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan snatched provisional pole on his final run past the chequered flag, before Onslow-Cole, who was right behind Jordan on the road, went just 0.088 seconds faster to grab back what is his fifth career pole.

“It’s fantastic, a really good result for me personally and for the team as well,” said Onslow-Cole to TouringCarTimes. “It wasn’t as smooth as we’d like it to be but the team did a fantastic job, and to take it in the dying seconds across the line there, to lose it momentarily and get it back just adds a bit of suspense.”

After a strong showing in free practice, Onslow-Cole’s confident the team will have good race pace for tomorrow. “We’re usually better in the races than we are in qualifying, so hopefully that’s a good omen for tomorrow,” he said. The rear-wheel drive BMW also has a starting advantage over the front-wheel drive cars, which Rob Collard has put to good use many times this season, which should also work in Onslow-Cole’s favour, though he adds:
“That is the theory, but it anyone’s followed my starts this year they’ll know they’re not exactly anything Santa Pod would be proud of. So hopefully I can get it off the line without losing anything and then we’ll be away from there.”

Tom Onslow-Cole’s pole along with Rob Collard qualifying fifth and Nick Foster 12th also gives the Ebay Motors/West Surrey Racing team a good placing on the grid heading in the races where they’re aiming to defend their lead in the independent teams’ championship, which is just five points over Eurotech Racing and ten points over Motorbase Performance.