Gordon Shedden secures first BTCC pole in five years at Donington Park

Gordon Shedden claimed his first pole position in the British Touring Car Championship since August 2016 at Donington Park, as the Team Dynamics driver edged out Power Maxed Racing’s Daniel Lloyd in qualifying.

Three-time champion Shedden narrowly posted a new qualifying lap record for the current generation of cars with his Q2 effort of 1 minute 8.994 seconds, as he beat the Vauxhall of Lloyd to the top time by just 0.033 seconds.

In a strong qualifying session for PMR, Jason Plato was third fastest, just behind his team-mate, having earlier only just edged into the top ten shootout.

Toyota’s rory Butcher was fourth fastest, also improving on his Q1 effort, ahead of BTC Racing’s Senna Proctor in fifth, who had earlier topped the ranking in the first part of qualifying.

Top of the title contenders was BMW’s Colin Turkington, who ended up in sixth, having earlier been quickest for a large part of Q1, ultimately being just three tenths off the pace in a session which produced a series of close lap times.

The second Team Dynamics Honda of Daniel Rowbottom was seventh, ahead of the leading Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai of Chris Smiley in eighth.

The top ten was completed by Laser Tools Racing’s championship leader Ash Sutton and BTC Racing’s Josh Cook, the latter just over half a second off Shedden’s pole time.

Critically, neither Excelr8’s Tom Ingram nor MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill made it through to Q2, with the title contenders facing starting race one from 12^th and 13^th on the grid respectively.

Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan had topped the pace in the morning’s first session but ended up narrowly missing Q2, the BMW driver qualifying in 11^th for race one on Sunday.

Elsewhere, both of Turkington’s Team BMW team-mates struggled, with Stephen Jelley in 17^th and sharing the ninth row of the grid with Tom Oliphant in 18^th.

Laser Tools Racing’s Aiden Moffat, who had shown increased pace in the past two events, was just 21^st in his Infiniti, six tenths off the pace.

Race one is scheduled to get underway at 11:55 BST on Sunday.

Q2 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	52		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	7	1:08.994	–
2	123		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	7	1:09.027	0.033
3	11		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	7	1:09.147	0.153
4	6		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	6	1:09.214	0.220
5	18		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	7	1:09.282	0.288
6	2		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	9	1:09.300	0.306
7	32		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	7	1:09.360	0.366
8	22		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	7	1:09.465	0.471
9	1		Ashley SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	8	1:09.493	0.499
10	66		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	8	1:09.544	0.550

Q1 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	18		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	15	1:09.051	–
2	2		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	11	1:09.076	0.025
3	32		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	7	1:09.085	0.034
4	1		Ashley SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	14	1:09.098	0.047
5	52		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	12	1:09.119	0.068
6	22		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	16	1:09.234	0.183
7	6		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	16	1:09.303	0.252
8	123		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	16	1:09.305	0.254
9	66		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	17	1:09.329	0.278
10	11		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	15	1:09.330	0.279
11	33		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	18	1:09.367	0.316
12	80		Tom INGRAM	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	16	1:09.374	0.323
13	24		Jake HILL	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	17	1:09.385	0.334
14	4		Sam OSBORNE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	17	1:09.409	0.358
15	48		Ollie JACKSON	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	16	1:09.438	0.387
16	99		Jade EDWARDS	PHSC with BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	16	1:09.511	0.460
17	12		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	18	1:09.519	0.468
18	15		Tom OLIPHANT	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	18	1:09.525	0.474
19	3		Tom CHILTON	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	16	1:09.538	0.487
20	40		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions	CUPRA Leon	16	1:09.573	0.522
21	16		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	19	1:09.661	0.610
22	19		Jack MITCHELL	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	16	1:09.679	0.628
23	96		Jack BUTEL	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	17	1:09.720	0.669
24	23		Sam SMELT	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	18	1:09.778	0.727
25	62		Rick PARFITT Jr	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	18	1:09.866	0.815
26	31		Jack GOFF	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	15	1:09.881	0.830
27	44		Andy NEATE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	17	1:10.026	0.975
28	41		Carl BOARDLEY	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	17	1:10.059	1.008
29	28		Nicolas HAMILTON	ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading	CUPRA Leon	15	1:10.692	1.641