Colin Turkington secures pole at Knockhill
Colin Turkington returned to form in qualifying at Knockhill after securing his second pole of the British Touring Car Championship season.
The WSR driver headed into the weekend looking to fight back from tough outings at both Brands Hatch and Oulton Park that had dropped him down to ninth in the standings.
The two Laser Tools Racing Infinitis were first to set quick times with Aiden Moffat and Ash Sutton going straight into the top two positions, with Moffat securing the advantage over Sutton on the first laps.
However, Sutton then moved ahead on the next lap as Moffat came up behind the Honda of Jade Edwards at the Chicane and lost time, with the Scot then moving towards Edwards’ car o the run to Clarks to show his displeasure at losing time.
Sutton then improved the best lap down to a 51.035s, with Turkington and Chris Smiley both getting ahead of Moffat, before the session was halted with eight minutes run after Rick Parfitt went off into the gravel at the Chicane.
The Hyundai was able to recover back to the pits and the session then restarted with 22 minutes left on the clock.
Gordon Shedden immediately jumped into second on the restart before Turkington edged back ahead, with BTC Racing pair Josh Cook and Senna Proctor then vaulting up the order as they continued to show strong pace in their Hondas.
Proctor slotted into second behind Sutton but Cook went fastest of all onto provisional pole, only to then be bettered by Turkington’s BMW as he set the first sub 51s laps.
Things then quietened down at the front, with Turkington leading the way from Cook, Sutton, Butcher, Tom Oliphant and Shedden before the red flags came out again with little over 11 minutes remaining as Adam Morgan lost the rear of his BMW at the Chicane and slid into the gravel.
When the session again restarted, Proctor was the first man to improve near the front, going fastest of all in sector two as he moved into provisional pole, with the leading five drivers on the times covered by a tenth of a second.
With just under five minutes remaining, Turkington then bettered Proctor’s lap by more than a tenth of a second to go onto pole, with Jake Hill moving up into the top four in his Focus as the session entered the final two minutes.
Whilst there were few improvements as the clock ticked down, a notable exception was Chris Smiley, who had topped free practice in his Hyundai.
The EXCELR8 man set his best lap on his final tour and whilst it wasn’t good enough to beat either Turkington or Proctor, it slotted the Northern Irishman into third spot.
Turkington therefore secured pole for the second time this season with Proctor on the front row for the second meeting in a row in his Honda, with Smiley joined on row two by Cook in the second of the BTC Racing entries.
Hill would end up fifth, with Sutton taking a hugely impressive sixth with full ballast on the Infiniti; the championship leader pushing to the limit – and beyond – as he looked to try and get as high up the order as possible.
Moffat was just 0.001s behind in the second Infiniti, with Rory Butcher, Tom Ingram and Tom Oliphant rounding out the top ten – Ingram leaving it late to jump into the top ten having struggled with the additional weight on his car in practice.
