Mat Jackson has scored back-to-back pole positions in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship after the Ford Focus driver produced another unstoppable qualifying performance at Silverstone.

Like London buses the Motorbase Performance has its second ever BTCC qualifying triumph, following on from Jackson’s success last time out at Rockingham.

Such was Jackson’s dominance during the session that he was able to set four lap times quicker than any other driver, albeit with his new lap record time of 58:078s only two tenths of a second quicker than Gordon Shedden’s best effort.

Championship leader Shedden will be delighted to have hauled his maximum ballast-laden Honda Civic Type R onto the front row of the grid, and he’d have been further pleased to see his closest title rival – Jason Plato – down in tenth.

The session got off to a frenetic start with Jackson settling nicely into P1 immediately after the similar Ford Focus of Alex Martin had spun off at Maggotts. The timing of the incident was perfect for Jackson and disastrous for several others as the imminent red flag would scupper a number of flying runs.

Jackson continued bettering his own benchmark after the restart as Shedden moved up to second, but the battled behind intensified with every passing moment.

It was the West Surrey Racing BMW of Sam Tordoff and MG Triple Eight Racing’s Andrew Jordan in third and fourth respectively, as the two talented chargers look to keep their own mathematical championship chances alive.

Dave Newsham came from nowhere to fire his Power Maxed Chevrolet into the top five late on, relegating reigning champion Colin Turkington down a place in the process. Despite the predicted success of the Team BMR RCIB Insurance VWs it was to be Turkington who would produce the best result for the outfit with sixth, as Aron Smith could only manage eighth while Plato was a further two places back.