Team Aon took their second front row lockout of the year at Donington Park today for the penultimate meeting of the 2010 season.
After struggling early on in the first practice session – with Tom Chilton fifth and Tom Onslow-Cole twelfth – the team knew they had to improve their performance for the afternoon sessions. Adopting a different set-up worked for the two Tom’s and they went third and fifth fastest.
Going into qualifying the weather threatened to play its hand on the BTCC runners. Light rain early on in the session soon cleared however and both drivers stayed on slicks for the whole session. At the mid-way point when the session was red flagged both drivers had shown promising pace and were in the top 5 when the session was red flagged.
A quick sprint in the last 8 minutes of the session saw both drivers put in critically fast laps to secure the front row of the grid. It means that the team go into tomorrow’s races with the upper hand as they fight for several championships.
Tom Chilton, fifth in the championship, has already admitted his title hopes are effectively over. However Onslow-Cole’s are very much alive as he is currently third in the points meaning that Chilton will have an important role to play in supporting his team-mate in the races.
After the session Chilton admitted how hard he had to work to take his fourth pole position of the season.
“That was the hardest pole position of my life!,” exclaimed Chilton. “It started damp, but we kept, pushing, pushing and I managed to push so hard that on my fastest lap I actually clipped the tyre wall on the inside of the chicane, which has left a big mark on my car! But I literally couldn’t have gone any faster, I used every millimetre of the track and so I’m delighted that it was good enough for P1!”
Onslow-Cole, who set his time with 27kg of ballast in his car, commented: “Job’s a good’un! To qualify P2 with success ballast in the car is a great result, as we were a little bit worried after seeing the times of some of our rivals in practice this morning. This puts us in a good position for tomorrow, it is going to be a tough day tomorrow and the weather could spring some surprises, but at least we are starting at the right end.”