Colin Turkington beats Tom Ingram to Brands Hatch pole

BMW’s Colin Turkington beat EXCELR8 Motorsport’s Tom Ingram to pole position in qualifying for the British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch, as Jake Hill qualified in sixth.

Turkington bagged his fourth pole position of the season, and with it secured the Goodyear ‘Wingfoot’ award for the best overall qualifying performance in 2024, by topping the ‘Quick Six’ Q3 session, having earlier topped his Q1 group before posting the fourth best time in Q2.

The northern Irishman was just 0.036 seconds ahead of joint series leader Ingram, who put in a succession of fast laps in Q3 but was unable to deny pole to Turkington.

NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton was third, clearly frustrated to lose a lap time in Q3 which would have been good enough for pole, the Ford racer ending up 0.130 seconds from pole.

Speedworks Motorsport’s Josh Cook put in a quick lap late in the session to end as the top Toyota once again in fourth, a quarter of a second off the pace.

Power Maxed Racing’s Árón Taylor-Smith was fifth, meaning the Independent champion made it through to the final part of qualifying in half of this year’s sessions, all coming in the second half of 2024.

Joint points leader Jake Hill was only sixth, almost half a second slower than his stable-mate, after reporting a “very strange feeling in the back of the car” following Q2, resulting in the Laser Tools Racing driver lapping four tenths slower in Q3 than he had done in Q2.

Power Maxed’s Mikey Doble was the top driver not to progress into Q3, putting his Vauxhall in seventh, ahead of a season-best qualifying effort from Unlimited Motorsport’s Daryl DeLeon in eighth, the Filippino-British driver going one better than his previous season best effort.

BMW’s Adam Morgan and NAPA Racing’s Dan Cammish completed the top ten, with Cammish twice being hit with losing lap times for exceeding track limits.

Speedworks’ Aiden Moffat made it into Q2 for just the second time this year but the Toyota driver could only muster a time good enough for 11^th, whilst NAPA Racing’s Daniel Rowbottom was 12^th having had a high-speed spin at Sheene corner.

Toyota’s Rob Huff was 13^th, having failed to progress beyond Q1, arguably the harder group in the first part, with the Speedworks driver like Rowbottom also having a moment at Sheene on a quick lap.

Andrew Watson will line up alongside his Toyota team-mate on the seventh row of the grid after ending up 14^th, ahead of EXCELR8’s Tom Chilton in 15^th, whilst relative newcomer Dan Zelos was 16^th having not hooked up as impressive a lap time as he did in his previous qualifying effort.

Race one is scheduled to get underway at 11:30 BST on Sunday.

‘Quick Six’ results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	20		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	6	1:29.333	–
2	80		Tom INGRAM	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	6	1:29.369	0.036
3	1		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	6	1:29.463	0.130
4	66		Josh COOK	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	5	1:29.582	0.249
5	40		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	5	1:29.820	0.487
6	24		Jake HILL	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	5	1:29.825	0.492

Q2 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	1		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	5	1:29.326	–
2	66		Josh COOK	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	5	1:29.411	0.085
3	40		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	5	1:29.430	0.104
4	20		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	6	1:29.431	0.105
5	24		Jake HILL	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	5	1:29.440	0.114
6	80		Tom INGRAM	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	6	1:29.462	0.136
7	88		Mikey DOBLE	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	5	1:29.618	0.292
8	18		Daryl DELEON	Duckhams Racing with Bartercard	CUPRA Leon	6	1:29.780	0.454
9	33		Adam MORGAN	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	6	1:29.871	0.545
10	27		Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	6	1:29.895	0.569
11	16		Aiden MOFFAT	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	7	1:30.137	0.811
12	32		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	6	1:30.891	1.565

Q1 Group 2 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	20		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	5	1:29.589	–
2	88		Mikey DOBLE	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	5	1:29.736	0.147
3	32		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	6	1:29.841	0.252
4	18		Daryl DELEON	Duckhams Racing with Bartercard	CUPRA Leon	5	1:29.959	0.370
5	16		Aiden MOFFAT	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	5	1:30.012	0.423
6	27		Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	6	1:30.076	0.487
7	3		Tom CHILTON	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	6	1:30.083	0.494
8	222		Chris SMILEY	Restart Racing	CUPRA Leon	5	1:30.496	0.907
9	29		Scott SUMPTON	Restart Racing	CUPRA Leon	5	1:31.134	1.545
10	22		Nick HALSTEAD	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	6	1:32.479	2.890

Q1 Group 1 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	1		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	5	1:29.247	–
2	40		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	5	1:29.409	0.162
3	80		Tom INGRAM	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	5	1:29.416	0.169
4	24		Jake HILL	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	5	1:29.601	0.354
5	66		Josh COOK	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	5	1:29.748	0.501
6	33		Adam MORGAN	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	5	1:29.754	0.507
7	12		Rob HUFF	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	6	1:29.872	0.625
8	11		Andrew WATSON	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	5	1:30.045	0.798
9	45		Dan ZELOS	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	5	1:30.391	1.144
10	77		Sam OSBORNE	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	6	1:30.707	1.460