Colin Turkington: ‘Silverstone is the worst circuit to have no hybrid in qualifying’

Colin Turkington lamented not having any hybrid allocation for qualifying, leaving the Team BMW driver to only manage the tenth best time in British Touring Car Championship qualifying on Saturday.

By virtue of leading the drivers’ standings, Turkington had no additional boost available to him for his qualifying session on Saturday afternoon.

The Northern Irishman thus qualified in tenth – fourth out of the five BMW cars – just over three tenths from pole.

The four-time champion also felt it was unlucky for the session to have been red-flagged at the mid-point when he was on a personal best lap with a tow from team-mate Stephen Jelley.

“Ultimately Silverstone, with long straights and only four corners, is the worst circuit in the BTCC to come to with no hybrid for qualifying,” explained Turkington.

“That was always going to make it tough today and qualifying tenth isn’t where I want to be ideally.

“It was pretty unlucky that the red flags came out while I was on my hot lap with a tow from Stephen and Jake [Hill] – and already faster than I’d been before – but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

Turkington is expecting a tough fight in the opening encounter, outlining his aim as scoring points with a view to pushing forwards later in the day.

“Race one is going to be tough because I only have hybrid for six laps and the cars around me have more, but the target will be the same as ever; hang in there, score points and see if we can get something out of the reversed-grid draw for race three.”