Tom Ingram set a new qualifying lap record en route to taking pole position for Round 7 of the 2016 British Touring Car Championship, the first of tomorrow’s triple-header of races at Thruxton.
Ingram secured his second pole position of the campaign with a fastest lap time of 1:16.161, just 0.033 seconds ahead of a fantastic performance by Aiden Moffat to secure the other spot on the front row in the Laser Tools Racing Mercedes A-Class. Matt Neal came next with a full quota of 75kg of success ballast on board his Honda Civic Type R, with the MG duo of Josh Cook and Ashley Sutton and Adam Morgan rounding out the top six.
The theme of the session was track limits, as Matt Neal had his fastest lap time disallowed whilst sitting atop the timesheets, before Ingram then had a brace of pole position laps wiped out by the officials on consecutive laps. A number of other drivers up and down the field fell foul of the stewards verdict, but the grid was fairly representative of the pace nonetheless.
Andrew Jordan, who put in a brace of strong free practice performances in topping the first session and finishing runner up to Ingram in the second, could only manage 8th fastest in his Pirtek Racing Ford Focus, behind Jeff Smith who rounded out a strong day for Eurotech Racing to head up the fourth row of the field.
The West Surrey Racing trio struggled in the afternoon sunshine in Hampshire, managing a best of 10th with Sam Tordoff whilst his team-mates Jack Goff and local hero Rob Collard fell further back to 12th and 18th respectively.
The only team on the grid to field more cars than WSR, Silverline Subaru BMR Racing, had another afternoon to develop the Subaru Levorg and Colin Turkington, a previous race-winner at Thruxton and rear-wheel drive specialist, led the line for the Buntingford-based outfit in 13th, with his team-mates Jason Plato, Warren Scott and James Cole lining up further back in 21st, 28th and 29th.
It was a frustrating session for some of the championship contenders, with defending champion Gordon Shedden only able to manage a best time of 11th, almost eight tenths of a second shy of Ingram, whilst Mat Jackson, a race winner last time out at Donington Park, could only struggle to 14th.
After another dramatic thirty minute shootout, Ingram makes it a 66.6% strike rate in qualifying so far this campaign, and will look to repeat his lights-to-flag victory at Brands Hatch six weeks ago when the first race gets underway tomorrow afternoon at 12:12. As always, the action is live on ITV4 and in HD.
Qualifying times
| POS | NO | CL | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 80 | Tom INGRAM |  |
Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota Avensis | 16 | 1:16.161 | ||
| 2 | 16 | Aiden MOFFAT | |
Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | 12 | 1:16.194 | 0.033 | |
| 3 | 25 | M | Matt NEAL | |
Halfords Yuasa Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 9 | 1:16.247 | 0.086 |
| 4 | 66 | M | Josh COOK | |
MG Racing RCIB Insurance | MG6GT | 12 | 1:16.577 | 0.416 |
| 5 | 116 | M | Ashley SUTTON | |
MG Racing RCIB Insurance | MG6GT | 14 | 1:16.727 | 0.566 |
| 6 | 33 | Adam MORGAN | |
WIX Racing | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | 12 | 1:16.811 | 0.650 | |
| 7 | 55 | Jeff SMITH | |
Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 16 | 1:16.826 | 0.665 | |
| 8 | 77 | Andrew JORDAN | |
Motorbase Performance | Ford Focus | 15 | 1:16.845 | 0.684 | |
| 9 | 40 | Árón SMITH |  |
BKR | Volkswagen CC | 14 | 1:16.864 | 0.703 | |
| 10 | 600 | C | Sam TORDOFF | |
Team JCT600 with GardX | BMW 125i M Sport | 16 | 1:16.887 | 0.726 |
| 11 | 52 | M | Gordon SHEDDEN | |
Halfords Yuasa Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 15 | 1:16.933 | 0.772 |
| 12 | 31 | C | Jack GOFF | |
Team IHG Rewards Club | BMW 125i M Sport | 16 | 1:16.989 | 0.828 |
| 13 | 4 | M | Colin TURKINGTON | |
Silverline Subaru BMR Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 17 | 1:17.089 | 0.928 |
| 14 | 7 | Mat JACKSON | |
Motorbase Performance | Ford Focus | 14 | 1:17.112 | 0.951 | |
| 15 | 24 | Jake HILL | |
RCIB Insurance Racing | Toyota Avensis | 16 | 1:17.237 | 1.076 | |
| 16 | 23 | Daniel LLOYD | |
Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 11 | 1:17.252 | 1.091 | |
| 17 | 30 | Martin DEPPER | |
Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 16 | 1:17.253 | 1.092 | |
| 18 | 100 | C | Rob COLLARD | |
Team JCT600 with GardX | BMW 125i M Sport | 18 | 1:17.461 | 1.300 |
| 19 | 53 | Hunter ABBOTT | |
Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet Cruze | 12 | 1:17.516 | 1.355 | |
| 20 | 17 | Dan WELCH | |
Goodestone Racing | Proton Persona | 14 | 1:17.529 | 1.368 | |
| 21 | 99 | M | Jason PLATO | |
Silverline Subaru BMR Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 14 | 1:17.644 | 1.483 |
| 22 | 12 | Mike EPPS | |
RCIB Insurance Racing | Toyota Avensis | 18 | 1:17.676 | 1.515 | |
| 23 | 303 | Matt SIMPSON | |
Speedworks Motorsport | Honda Civic Type R | 15 | 1:17.697 | 1.536 | |
| 24 | 11 | Rob AUSTIN | |
Handy Motorsport | Toyota Avensis | 13 | 1:17.880 | 1.719 | |
| 25 | 48 | Ollie JACKSON | |
AmD Tuning | Audi S3 | 17 | 1:18.659 | 2.498 | |
| 26 | 14 | Alex MARTIN | |
Dextra Racing with Team Parker | Ford Focus | 16 | 1:18.705 | 2.544 | |
| 27 | 84 | Kelvin FLETCHER | |
Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet Cruze | 14 | 1:18.828 | 2.667 | |
| 28 | 39 | M | Warren SCOTT | |
Silverline Subaru BMR Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 15 | 1:18.879 | 2.718 |
| 29 | 20 | M | James COLE | |
Silverline Subaru BMR Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 16 | 1:19.145 | 2.984 |
| 30 | 38 | Mark HOWARD | |
BKR | Volkswagen CC | 12 | 1:20.110 | 3.949 | |
| 31 | 95 | Stewart LINES | |
Maximum Motorsport | Ford Focus | 16 | 1:20.616 | 4.455 | |
| 32 | 22 | Chris SMILEY | |
TLC Racing | Toyota Avensis | 1 | No time | N/A |