Matt Neal will start Round 13 of the 2012 British Touring Car Championship from Pole Position after topping the times in the qualifying session at Croft.
Click here for the full qualifying times.
Neal set his best time just before the 20 minute mark and was never headed as the session settled down. He will be joined on the front row by the Pirtek Motorsport Honda Civic of Andrew Jordan, while Championship leader Gordon Shedden completes the Honda 1-2-3 despite carrying the maximum 45 kg of success ballast.
With the threat of rain throughout the session, everyone took to the track early to get a banker lap in and it was the Redstone Racing Ford Focus of Mat Jackson who topped the times with the first flying lap.
Just after Jackson improved, it was the turn of the WSR-run eBay Motors BMW 320si of Tom Onslow-Cole to jump to the top of the times, demoting Jackson to P2, before the MG KX Momentum Racing MG6 of Jason Plato moved to P1.
The next name to appear at the top of the times was Rob Austin in the Rob Austin Racing Audi A4 – but his moment of glory didn’t last long as Plato replied and went fastest once again.
Soon enough, Championship leader Shedden jumped to the top of the times with a 1:25.114, and Neal completed a Honda Yuasa Racing team 1-2 as he went fastest with 20 minutes remaining. Once Jordan took P2 from Shedden, the top three positions were settled with Plato in fourth at the time.
Frank Wrathall in the Dynojet Toyota ultimately took fourth in the closing 5 minutes of the session, with Plato being forced to start from fifth after he was unable to improve his time when his MG6 ground to a halt with only three minutes remaining in the session. Rob Collard joins him on the third row of the grid in sixth, and with it is the top S2000-chassis driver.
Rob Austin’s was unable to improve on his impressive early time, which was still good enough for seventh. Mat Jackson will start alongside him in eighth, with Andy Neate and Tom Onslow-Cole completing the top ten.
Adam Morgan starts from 11th in the Speedworks Toyota, despite having been inside the top ten for the majority of the session. Nevertheless the results stands as his best qualifying session in the BTCC to-date.
A number of drivers found the track conditions difficult and had to hold high-speed slides, including Neal and Shedden. Jeff Smith ended up in the tyres on his final flying lap – having run wide at Sunny In, he was unable to get back on track and hit the tyres before recovering to the pits.
The top S2000 runner is eBay Motors Rob Collard in fifth, while the top Independent is Jordan in second. Paul O’Neill, making his first appearance in 2012, took the #29 Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis to 18th.
Round 13 gets underway at 12.02 GMT on Sunday.