Tom Onslow-Cole takes pole for Brands Hatch finale

Tom Onslow-Cole has taken pole position in a ding-dong battle with independent rival Andrew Jordan at Brands Hatch. The West Surrey Racing BMW driver has taken his first pole since Silverstone 2010, whilst title rivals Plato and Shedden qualify fifth and seventh.

As the clouds threatened the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit, the 24 cars took to the track and saw P1 change hands eleven times.

Tom Onslow-Cole looked set to grab pole after setting two consecutive fast laps in the last ten minutes, the fastest of which was a 1:31.719, before Andrew Jordan put in a time of 1:31.703 on his final run after the chequered flag had fallen. Tom Onslow-Cole was right behind Jordan on the track however, and snatched pole back within seconds with a time of 1:31.615 to take his first pole since 2010 and WSR’s first since Croft 2009.

Jason Plato was challenging hard in his Triple Eight MG, but slid off at Paddock Hill bend on his final run just at the end of the session. Matt Neal briefly held pole in the Honda Civic, but slid to third behind the battle between Onslow-Cole and Jordan at the end of the session.

The session was briefly red flagged as Chris James spun his Team ES Racing Vauxhall Vectra out and into the gravel trap.

Tony Gilham didn’t set a time, pitting straight away at the start of the session in his Team HARD Vauxhall Insignia and didn’t set a timed lap. Frank Wrathall also suffered problems with smoke bellowing out of his Dynojet Racing Toyota after the session restarted, but the team were able to resolve it and allow Wrathall to qualify in 14th place.

Rob Collard qualified fourth in the second of the WSR BMWs with Jason Plato down in fifth ahead of Adam Morgan’s Speedworks Toyota and points leader Gordon Shedden in seventh.

Aaron Williamson was an impressive eighth on his BTCC debut for Team HARD in the S2000-spec Honda Civic, with Mat Jackson’s Ford Focus ST ninth and Dave Newsham rounding out the top ten.