Jason Plato has put his MG6 on pole position for the first of Sunday’s three British Touring Car Championship races around Oulton Park, beating Honda’s Matt Neal by 0.077 seconds.
Click here for the full Round 10 Qualifying results.
The results marks Plato’s second pole of the 2012 season. The 44 year-old had been improving his times throughout the session as the track continued to dry, before finally posting the fastest time in the final minute of qualifying when the expected rain did not arrive.
Third on the grid will be the eBay Motors BMW of Rob Collard, who was another driver to improve in the closing seconds. Alongside him on the second row of the grid will be Pirtek’s Andrew Jordan, who qualified just 0.179 seconds off pole and had been challenging for the top spot throughout the session. Ultimately traffic on his final flying run meant that Jordan could not quite find the extra couple of tenths required.
Gordon Shedden will start the first race on Sunday from fifth, having qualified just over half a second off Plato. Alongside the Honda driver will be Tom Onslow-Cole in the second eBay Motors BMW.
Dynojet’s Frank Wrathall and Welch Motorsport’s Daniel Welch were seventh and eighth, with Welch enjoying his strongest-ever qualifying session in his BTCC career to-date. Dave Newsham and Mat Jackson completed the top ten for Team ES Racing and Redstone Racing respectively. Jackson endured a session with limited running as the result of a problem with his cooling system, limiting him to just six laps.
Plato’s MG team-mate Andy Neate could only manage 12th in qualifying, having shown top ten pace throughout the morning’s practice sessions.
For his BTCC debut former Formula 2 racer Will Bratt will start from 18th position in the Rob Austin Racing Audi A4.