Andy Priaulx was delighted to have secured pole position on his return to the British Touring Car Championship, but insisted he would be taking nothing for granted ahead of his first race in the series in more than a decade.
The three-time World Touring Car champion, who announced his return to the championship with West Surrey Racing in January, set a fastest time of 48.441s during the half-hour session to beat the Team BMR trio of Árón Smith, Jason Plato and Colin Turkington to pole.
Speaking to TouringCars.Net after the session, Priaulx was thrilled to be starting from the front of the grid, particularly given that ballast played no part in deciding the order.
“It’s a good feeling,” he admitted. “I knew when I first jumped in the car that I felt comfortable – obviously you don’t know how good you’ll be compared to the opposition.
“I like that pole because we’re all light; there’s no weight factoring in. It was a really nice way to start the season.
“I knew it was a good lap because I put the sectors together and it was really tidy but you never know what the other guys are doing.
“It was nice to hear that it was P1 and it stayed that way which is great. I think on the last new tyre run we didn’t quite find its peak but it was enough for us [anyway].”
Priaulx also spoke of highly of returning to the championship and hoped that his racing credentials – for anyone who had doubted them – had been proven by his qualifying result.
“It’s great, I’m really enjoying it and it’s great to be back in touring car racing again. World Touring Cars was nice and then I had a few years in DTM and I didn’t ultimately enjoy that, GTs were great, in America last year but I didn’t get invited back for whatever reason so I’m really happy to be here and sticking it at the front.”
Looking towards tomorrow’s opening rounds of the season, Priaulx was confident about his chances of victory but insisted that he was making no presumptions about his results.
“I want to win, but I never expect anything,” he said. “Expecting it would be a dangerous thing to do – I will try to win, I would like to win and I’m very hopeful that I can win but expectation is a very dangerous thing in motorsport.”