Reigning champion Colin Turkington believes his qualifying result puts him in an “excellent position” for the trio of British Touring Car Championship races at Croft.
The Northern Irishman doubled up by topping both free practice sessions in dry conditions at the 2.1-mile circuit, before rain fell heavily ahead of a dramatic qualifying session that would see conditions improving lap on lap.
With both provisional polesitter Tom Ingram and erstwhile second row starter Senna Proctor being disqualified for failing the ride height check post-session, both Turkington and his team-mate Tom Oliphant inherited second row starts for the opening race tomorrow.
The four-time champion said he was pleased with the result and feels his BMW 330i M Sport was the “dominant package” to have in dry conditions even with 54kg of success ballast aboard, and felt he still had a “very fast car” during qualifying in mixed conditions.
‘I’m really happy with that result,” said Turkington. “Obviously, the conditions flipped from free practice when we had the dominant package – so hopefully we have that to look forward to tomorrow.
We also had a very fast car in the wet so to be third is great.”
With conditions ever-changing in the session, Turkington believes there was more time to come out on track, but still feels he bagged a strong result, particularly given that it was a difficult day for title rivals Ash Sutton, Dan Cammish and Ingram who ended up sixth, 14th and 26th respectively.
“The session was really all about timing and getting your lap in when it was properly wet. I would have loved another bite at it, because I think there was more time in there, but then with the couple of red flags the track just dropped off towards the end.
“All things said it’s put me in an excellent position for tomorrow.”
The opening British Touring Car Championship race at Croft is scheduled to get underway at 12:02 BST tomorrow [11 October].