Dan Rowbottom heads NAPA one-two at Donington

Dan Rowbottom celebrated his first qualifying session with the Motorbase-run NAPA Racing UK squad in fine style with pole position for the opening BTCC weekend of the season at Donington Park.

Rowbotton emerged as the quickest driver in the first top ten shootout of the year to beat team-mate Ash Sutton to pole position, with the pair split by just 0.041s.

Sutton had earlier topped the opening phase of qualifying as the NAPA Racing Fords locked out the leading three places, with Rowbottom and Dan Cammish behind, leaving Colin Turkington’s BMW leading the rear-wheel drive challenge in fourth.

Jake Hill, Tom Ingram, Josh Cook, Andrew Watson, Adam Morgan and Ricky Collard completed the ten drivers who managed to make it through to Q2.

Ronan Pearson would be the unlucky person to just miss out on making it through to the second part of the session, with the rookie driver finishing just 0.062s behind Collard after his final lap – which came just before team-mate Nick Halstead slid into the gravel at turn one to bring out a red flag with 40 seconds remaining.

Dan Lloyd was twelfth ahead of Rory Butcher’s Toyota and the other Hyundai of Tom Chilton – both of which would have hoped to make the top-ten shootout.

Stephen Jelley was another driver who would have expected to be in the mix for the top ten, but would end up back in 15th.

With Halstead’s car recovered, the battle for pole commenced – minus Collard’s Toyota which was suffering from a fuel leak and undergoing work in the pits that would consign him to tenth on the grid.

Defending champion Ingram was the first driver to put in a quick time but would then be shuffled back down the order with Cammish, Hill and then Sutton moving onto provisional pole.

Sutton however then lost his fastest lap for track limits, seeing him return to the pits for a change of tyres as Rowbottom rocketed to the fastest time.

As Turkington moved into second in his BMW, Sutton had one lap in which to try and grab pole but fell just short of beating his team-mate to top spot.

Hill and Turkington share row two after Hill managed to edge ahead of his team-mate, with Cammish and Ingram sharing row three.

Cook took seventh ahead of Morgan, with Watson capping an impressive first qualifying performance with ninth.