BTCC

Championship challenger Colin Turkington will steal a march on his main title rivals by completing the second row for tomorrow’s opener in his eBay Motors BMW, as Honda endured its most difficult qualifying session of the season. The fastest Honda Civic driver has qualified on either the first or second rows in the previous eight events this season, but incredibly Matt Neal produced the best performance for the Japanese marque down in ninth place here at Silverstone. Championship leader Andrew Jordan could only manage tenth while reigning supremo Gordon Shedden qualified in 15th – his lowest position of 2013.
 
Three young guns took maximum advantage of the woes experienced by the main contenders with Frank Wrathall being particularly impressive. Despite running in the top five early on Wrathall’s Dynojet Toyota failed a mid-session ride height test and the stewards removed his lap times from the leader board. Undeterred by the set-back, Wrathall returned and fired himself back into fifth on his first flying lap after his team had corrected the issue.
 
Jack Goff completed the best qualifying display of his short BTCC career when he hauled his Vauxhall Insignia into sixth ahead of the ever-consistent Adam Morgan in the Ciceley Racing Toyota Avensis. The eBay Motors BMW of Rob Collard did enough to edge out the aforementioned Neal and Jordan to claim eighth.
 
Andy Neate narrowly missed out on a top ten qualifying berth but the Team Club 44 squad will be hugely buoyed by the potential shown in its Chevrolet Cruze, particularly after the unfortunate accident in the recent Rockingham opener that forced the car out of the remainder of the event.
 
Lea Wood continued his dominant day in the Jack Sears Trophy by cruising around comfortably quicker than the Ford Focus of Liam Griffin.

Colin Turkington said: “Straight line speed is important at Silverstone and it isn’t one of the strengths of our car. We’ve done a really good job to maximise the strengths we do have – we’re particularly good in slow corners and change of direction, and we made the most of that in qualifying today. We lost most of FP2 with a problem on the car, so there was an element of chance in that session. Part of the job is done, but the important bit comes tomorrow.”