Colin Turkington put WSR and BMW on the front row at Silverstone on Saturday after one of the most closely-fought British Touring Car Championship qualifying sessions in recent years.
The four-time champion equalled Team BMW’s best qualifying result of the year in second place – just 0.012 seconds away from pole position – after a superb effort at the Home of British Motor Racing.
Completing an excellent day for the Manufacturers’ Championship leaders, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill put his BMW 330e M Sport fourth on the grid for Sunday’s opening race.
“It’s very good to have both Colin and Jake on the front two rows, both for themselves in the Drivers’ Championship and for BMW in the Manufacturers’ points,” commented Dick Bennetts, Team Principal. “It gives both of them a good chance to win tomorrow – or be on the podium at the very least. The first lap is going to be crucial with some of our key championship rivals right behind us on the grid so it will be a big battle from the word go.
It was Jake, third in the Drivers’ points, who showed best initially as the Kent racer – who has won four times this year – topped opening practice and was also fastest in a Q1 portion of qualifying in which just 0.109s covered the top 10 cars.
His fastest lap in the final part of qualifying – the ‘Top-10 Showdown’ – in which the fastest 10 cars in Q1 battled for the top spot, would have given him pole, but was disallowed for exceeding track limits.
His next-best effort put him fourth on the grid, albeit only 0.045s away from pole.
Colin, meanwhile, progressed from Q1 in third place and improved his pace by five hundredths of a second in the Showdown to wind up second on the grid meaning BMW is the only brand of car to appear on each of the front two rows.
Fellow Team BMW drivers Adam Morgan and Stephen Jelley will start 11th and 17th for the opening race.
Lancashire racer Adam showed top-10 speed in opening practice and looked to have made the Showdown with his best qualifying effort with just a minute of Q1 to go.
Unfortunately, that effort would ultimately leave him just 0.046s away from progressing.
Stephen was even more unlucky, an issue with his car’s hybrid system forcing an unscheduled pitstop midway through Q1 just as his tyres were reaching peak operating conditions.
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