Andrew Jordan maintained his excellent form this season with a perfectly timed lap to grab pole position in the British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton from the two Honda Yuasa Racing machines of Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal.
Click here for the full Round 7 qualifying results.
Shedden had led for a long period in the session, but Jordan set his lap with less than a minute remaining to clinch first place whilst the two factory Hondas were in the pits. Matt Neal was the early pacesetter, but eventally finished 0.097 seconds behind his teammate.
Jason Plato had a quiet but trouble-free run to fourth on the grid, half a second ahead of Sam Tordoff in the second MG. They separated Jeff Smith from the rest of the Civics, with sixth place nonetheless a fine result for the 47 year-old.
Tom Onslow-Cole carried over his strong performance in second practice to secure seventh for tomorrow’s first race, after another string of competitive laps in his Volkswagen Passat, a marked improvement for Team HARD.
After strong performances in the opening two practice sessions, the Toyotas weren’t quite up to speed in qualifying. Frank Wrathall, who had been fastest of the quartet throughout the day was eighth, one tenth ahead of Dave Newsham, with Adam Morgan two places further back and Ollie Jackson qualifying in 15th.
There was a similar story for eBay Motors, who looked to be fighting back to familiar positions in second practice, but Colin Turkington continued to wring the neck of his BMW to secure tenth on the start tomorrow. Indeed Turkington suffered a scary moment near the end of the session when he spun his BMW at Allard, resulting in the front windscreen briefly popping out as a result of the air flow through the car.
Further down the field, Dan Welch did well to qualify 19th after missing the start of the session having suffered earlier in the day, but there was bad news for Rob Austin as rear grip issues left him in 25th for the first race of the day tomorrow.
Joe Girling pulled out all the stops to set the fastest time of the s2000 cars, less than one tenth ahead of Lea Wood in his Vauxhall Vectra.