Honda’s Gordon Shedden secured his ninth career BTCC pole position at Donington Park after denying Frank Wrathall by just 0.049 seconds late in the session.
Click here for the full Round 4 qualifying times.
Shedden’s time of 1:10.074 came in the final five minutes of the sunny qualifying session, which was red-flagged with a minute to go after Airwaves Racing’s Árón Smith spun at the final chicane.
Dynojet’s Wrathall had posted the quickest time around the half-way point of the session, which stood for ten minutes before he was pipped by Scotsman Shedden.
“The times were really close and everyone’s absolutely on the limit,” said Wrathall to TouringCars.Net. “It was difficult to get that lap time out. I’m going to just squeeze every little bit of time out of the car. Starting at the front gives you the best opportunity to get a result and hopefully we’ll be able to translate it into a result.”
A closely-fought qualifying session saw drivers trading top times during the first fifteen minutes, with Colin Turkington setting the initial pace. This was followed by quick laps from Matt Neal, Sam Tordoff, Frank Wrathall, Jason Plato and Andrew Jordan.
Despite posting the fastest time in second practice, Jordan ultimately ended up third after qualifying, 0.107 seconds off pole position and just over a tenth slower than his fastest time of the day in FP2.
Matt Neal was fourth fastest, ahead of MG’s Jason Plato in fifth despite both former champions enjoying time at the top of the timesheets early in the session.
Adam Morgan continued his strong practice performance to qualify in sixth, narrowly missing out on equalling his strongest BTCC qualifying result.
Sam Tordoff was seventh fastest in the second MG, with eBay Motors’ Colin Turkington eighth fastest.
“We’re still finding our feet,” said Turkington after qualifying. “We just haven’t got the car in a sweet spot yet.”
Dave Newsham and Jeff Smith completed the top ten in their Toyota and Honda’s respectively. Smith posted a time late in the session to demote Tom Onslow-Cole to 11th, after the Tony Gilham Racing driver showed encouraging pace on only the car’s second BTCC appearance.
The first BTCC race takes place at 11:37 GMT on Sunday (12:37 CET).