![Colin Turkington, Team BMW [WSR], BMW 330e M Sport](https://www.touringcars.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ColinTurkingtonBMW.jpg "Photo: Pat Cranham")
Colin Turkington says that West Surrey Racing has had a ‘dream start’ to its season by locking out the front row of the grid for the first British Touring Car Championship race of the hybrid era.
Team BMW’s Turkington was a mere 0.018 seconds slower than stablemate Jake Hill in the MB Motorsport BMW, as all three of the WSR-run cars qualified in the top seven, with Stephen Jelley two and a half tenths adrift.
Although the four-time champion acknowledges that Donington Park has historically been a good circuit for the car, he was nonetheless delighted to put in a top lap time on Saturday afternoon.
“That’s the dream start really for us as a team – three cars on the first four rows, and two on the front row,” said Turkington.
“The BMW has been quick right from the first pre-season test here. But you see how close the times are; there’s nothing between the first six or seven cars, so we had to work really hard to generate the lap time.
“Donington Park has always been a strong circuit for the BMW, so we’ve put ourselves in good shape for race day.
“My first outing was good – we made a change to the car in the wrong direction, so the second outing was pretty much aborted, but we got the time back in the third outing. I got near enough the most out of the car, so we’re in good shape for tomorrow.”
Turkington also praised the efforts of his WSR team in improving the 330e M sprot during the off-season, with the Northern Irishman believing that whilst some gains in lap time are due to the new hybrid system, other gains can be attributed to general improvements in the car.
“West Surrey always do a good job when it comes to new technology – being at the forefront of that, installing it correctly, reliability, all those things West Surrey are known for.
“But it’s not just the hybrid, Dick [Bennetts, Team Principal] has worked hard to give us a faster car than we had last year in a few areas, so the hard work is paying off.
“The team have worked hard to improve the chassis and give us a better handling car, so there’s a bit there and there’s a bit in hybrid.”
On race day, Turkington admitted that he has no particular plan for his use of the hybrid boost available to him in race one.
“I’m going to wing it. I know what I’ve done today and how that worked, and it’s a case of manipulating that depending on if I need to attack or defend.
“We’re going into the unknown a bit but it’s the same for everybody.”
He also added that working with Jake Hill, who claimed pole in the ‘satellite team’, was no different to working with any other team-mate in WSR.
“It’s no different really. It was the same when Andrew Jordan was here in 2019. On the inside it’s three cars, exactly the same, and it doesn’t feel like it’s a splinter team or anything like that, it’s three 330es out there and we’re all working forward to push the team forward.
“It’s important to have three quick cars to push each other on, because as you can see from qualifying the championship is so close and tight, so we need every half tenth we can pull out of each other.”