Colin Turkington clinches Brands Hatch BTCC pole position
Colin Turkington produced a superlative lap in British Touring Car Championship qualifying at Brands Hatch to clinch pole position for the first of Sunday’s three races on the Indy circuit.
The Team BMW driver hustled his BMW 330e M Sport to a best time of 47.875 to edge out his team-mate Adam Morgan and the lead NAPA Racing UK Ford of Dan Cammish to top spot; the trio were covered by a mere 0.066s.
Basked in glorious sunshine, the short Indy circuit proved to be busy across both Q1 sessions with Donington Park race winner Aiden Moffat and the two Power Maxed Racing Vauxhalls of Aron Taylor-Smith and Mikey Doble being the most notable names that were unable to progress.
Come Q2, the battle to move into the Quick Six Shootout further intensified and as expected, a number of front-runners – all with varying amounts of hybrid deployment – found themselves missing out.
Championship leader Tom Ingram was the most notable absentee from the final segment of qualifying as he could only manage eighth in his Team BRISTOL STREET Motors Hyundai. TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK’s Rob Huff meanwhile was 11th while Jake Hill finished 12th.
Turkington, Morgan, Cammish, Ash Sutton, Josh Cook and Dan Rowbottom progressed into Q3 and following an early flurry of laps it was four-time champion Turkington that reigned supreme.
Arguably one of the standout performers was reigning champion Sutton who, after almost dropping out in Q1, managed to power his Ford into fourth place behind Cammish, while Cook and Rowbottom completed the top six.
