Alex MacDowall has taken his first BTCC pole position at Snetterton this afternoon, beating his experienced team-mate by 0.094 seconds. It means there will be an all-Chevrolet front row for the first of tomorrow’s races, after the Silverline Chevrolet team continued their excellent from around the fast Norfolk circuit.
Click here for the full qualifying times from the session.
MacDowall’s pole position is the first of his career and the first in 2010 for a Chevrolet. Most significantly he also becomes the youngest driver to take an outright pole position in the BTCC at just 19 and a half years old.
As the qualifying session began, rain started to fall meaning that many drivers were expected to go out as early as possible to bag a lap time before the track became too wet. However the fastest times ended up being set on full wet tyres, with times coming down as driver’s got more used to the track.
Lining up in third for tomorrow’s first race will be Tom Chilton, who was unable to take advantage of the LPG performance advantage that many perceive the Team Aon driver to have around Snetterton. However he fared better than his team-mate Tom Onslow-Cole who twice failed the ride height check towards the end of the session, meaning that his times have been disallowed. He will start from 21st and last place for tomorrow’s first race.
“The front right corner of my car was damaged on my very first run, which meant that I failed the ride height when I was called in on my way back to the pits,” admitted Onslow-Cole. “The team fixed it as quickly as they could but there was very little time left of the session when I went back on track and I wasn’t able to set a time.”
Mat Jackson qualified in fourth – his best position of the year so far. The Airwaves BMW driver will be hoping to get a good start from the second row of the grid if it is dry in the first race.
Gordon Shedden improved on his dismal second practice session to qualify in fifth, whilst Andrew Jordan was a strong sixth.
Championship leader Matt Neal will start from seventh, but is carrying maximum success ballast so may struggle to get off to a good start in the opening race. Alongside Neal will be Paul O’Neill in the slippery Honda Integra which has a proven track record at Snetterton with multiple race victories and some strong performances with O’Neill at the wheel last year.
James Nash qualified in ninth, with Tom Boardman alongside in tenth after his best qualifying session of the season so far.