Colin Turkington ‘on a high’ after claiming Croft pole

Colin Turkington says his second British Touring Car Championship pole position of the season is a ‘big reward’ for Team BMW, who readied his 2019 title-winning car for Croft following his crash at Oulton Park last time out.

Turkington beat Team Dynamics’ Daniel Rowbottom to pole by just 0.027 seconds to claim his second pole of the season, after he had been on pole at Brands Hatch last month.

After his regular 2022 car was heavily damaged following the Oulton Park shunt, West Surrey Racing opted to prepare his 2019 title-winning car for this weekend’s races.

With that in the background, Turkington admitted that claiming pole was a ‘big result’ considering the circumstances.

“I’m definitely on a high – it’s a big reward for the whole team after the setback of Oulton Park race three,” said Turkington of his first Croft pole since 2016 to TouringCars.Net.

“To come back to Croft, with my old chassis, and put it on pole is a big result and what’s needed. If there’s anywhere that I wanted to come back to after that setback it’s Croft.

“But all those things said, it’s still been a difficult day. We’ve had to work hard to get the car in the window and do the lap when there was an opportunity.

“Obviously in qualifying there were a lot of red flags, so it was about picking the moment when the track was clear.

“It’s my second pole of the year but this one feels a bit more special than Brands just because of where we’ve been.”

Turkington says he felt no pain when driving the car and doesn’t anticipate any issues which would affect him on raceday.

“Certainly, in qualifying, I wasn’t thinking about [any discomfort]. I’d say I’m 80% of the way back to where I was. There shouldn’t be any issues tomorrow.”

The four-time champion says that race day will be more about tyre management than it will be about hybrid allocation.

“We’ve seen at other tracks when you’re at the front you can keep it at the front, but you never know what any race day is going to bring or what the variance of hybrid will be between having very little and having a lot.

“In qualifying I had four and a half seconds, so it didn’t seem to hurt me too much in qualifying.

“The race here is high grip, so it’s more about looking after the tyre. That’s what’s important at Croft – maximising your speed off the slow corner.”