James Thompson has qualified on pole position for the first of today's three Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship rounds at his home circuit of Croft in North Yorkshire.
Thompson survived a collision with a slower driver to then set the fastest time of 1m26.213s in his SEAT Leon. Harrogate-based Thompson was just 0.039s ahead of rising 21-year-old star Tom Chilton whose Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch will line up alongside him on the front row of the grid for the first of tomorrow’s three races at midday. A victory for Chilton would be Vauxhall’s 100th win in the BTCC.
Only 0.060s behind Thompson in third was reigning champion and current points leader Matt Neal in his Team Halfords Honda. Starting next to Neal on the second row having qualified fourth fastest will be SEAT’s Jason Plato. The pair will contest their 300th and 200th BTCC races respectively tomorrow.
Completing the top six were Team Halfords’ Gordon Shedden and Vauxhall’s Italian star Fabrizio Giovanardi. Meanwhile, Colin Turkington, second in the current BTCC standings, was left to work out how he’s to close the 33-point gap to Neal after qualifying only seventh fastest in his Team RAC MG – that was despite being only 0.286s slower than Thompson, so close is the competition at Croft.
Thompson, fourth in the points standings but not expecting to figure in the title fight as he’s only contesting six of the BTCC’s ten race meetings, said: “The collision with the backmarker was not the best of starts. It didn’t do any real damage, but the SEAT team still did very well to quickly give the car the OK before I could go out on track. I felt my driving was a bit scrappy, but I still got the job done. The times are very close. I expect tomorrow to be very hard work.”
After qualifying ahead of Turkington and Plato, Neal knows he has a chance to extend his lead even further. But he said: “I’m a bit disappointed to be third. I was fastest in the second practice session so to end up on row two isn’t perhaps what I’d expected. It also means we’ll be in the middle of the storm which I’d prefer to avoid.”
Plato, currently third in the championship but 45 points behind Neal, clearly senses he has the speed to get past the 6ft 6in Midlander and make up some of the lost ground. “The data shows that my ideal lap would have been equal to James’s but I just couldn’t quite string it all together. But at least I’m up there with Matt and now it’s up to me to beat the tall bloke,” said Plato.
Turkington remained optimistic of keeping up the pressure on Neal in the title race, even from four places back. “Our car is very fast, but it just lacked that wee bit more that we need in qualifying,” said the 24-year-old Northern Irishman. “We’ll work on it overnight and then it’s up to me. At least Matt’s not on pole so that might give me a better chance of keeping close to him.”
Today’s BTCC action will receive live national terrestrial television coverage on the ITV1 channel starting at 16.15.
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