Colin Turkington revels in WSR’s first-ever qualifying 1-2-3

Team BMW’s Colin Turkington was delighted to score his 25^th career BTCC pole position at Brands Hatch Indy, describing his BMW 330e M Sport as ‘the best car I’ve ever had’ at the circuit.

Turkington beat WSR stable-mate Jake Hill to pole by a generous 0.167 seconds on Saturday afternoon, whilst team-mate Stephen Jelley and Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan ensured it was a BMW top four in another strong session for the WSR-built cars.

The last time the four-time champion had a pole on the Indy circuit was 15 years ago, with the Northern Irishman putting some of his gains down to the recent resurfacing of the Kent circuit.

“It’s fantastic to be on pole position and to lead the first one-two-three WSR have ever had,” said Turkington. “After practice I knew I had pace, but didn’t think it would be enough for pole.

“The BMW in qualifying is the best car I’ve ever had at this track. I think the resurfacing at Paddock and Graham Hill bend has removed the big disadvantage we used to have at those corners and given a lot more grip.

“It’s very easy to overdrive in conditions like this, so it takes quite a lot to drive at 99 per cent rather than 105.

“If I can get a clean start tomorrow and get the tyres into the performance window nice and quick, I’m sure I can be in the reckoning for a win.”

Turkington isn’t concerned that for the second meeting in a row he will have Jake Hill starting alongside, after the two cost each other victory in the opening race at Donington Park last time out by battling too hard on the opening laps.

“Of course, it’s a Donington repeat maybe, but I think we’ve learnt our lesson from that one, but I’d sooner have four BMWs up at the front like this.

“It shows the strengths of the BMW 3 Series around this track… it is somewhere where we test during pre-season so I think we are just on top of things.”