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British Touring Car Championship
Knockhill - Qualifying - 23/8/14

By MJP Media | 23 August 2014

Colin Turkington continues his domination of the Knockhill circuit by topping the time sheet in the qualifying session but will start the first race from 9th on the grid.

Colin Turkington topped the time sheets but will start from 9th on the grid

Despite Colin Turkington's domination of recent races and today's free practice sessions at Knockhill, qualifying was never going to be straightforward for the current championship leader as he was sitting on an 8 place grid penalty resulting from an incident involving contact with Matt Neal at Snetterton. This would make qualifying even more crucial for the eBay Motors driver as anything other than fastest in qualifying would leave him down in the middle of the pack where anything can happen.

In the early part of the qualifying session, Nick Foster in the eBay Motors BMW 125i M Sport was the clear leader with a lap time of 52.882 seconds - over a second ahead of the field. His lead was short lived however as the front wheel drive cars came back into the mix after 10 minutes of the session when a red flag period was caused as Chris Stockton parked his Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze in the gravel. At that point it was Andrew Jordan who was fastest ahead of Matt Neal, Gordon Shedden, Rob Austin and Nick Foster. Rob Collard was a big loser after a spin left him well behind the leaders and stuck in traffic.

Chis Stockton caused a red flag period early in the session

With Stockton's car moved out of the way, it was back to the action with 20 minutes of the session remaining and the possibility of rain looming on the horizon. At the half way stage, Hondas occupied the top 3 places with Matt Neal, Gordon Shedden and Andrew Jordan. Colin Turkington then found some space and consummately breezed into pole position with Mat Jackson taking his Airwaves Racing Ford Focus ST into 4th.

As the clock ticked down to the 10 minute mark, two cars hadn't put a timed lap in at all - Simon Belcher in the Handy Motorsport Toyota Avensis and James Cole in the United Autosports Toyota Avensis. The two MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save MG6s were now on a charge and Sam Tordoff was able to go 2nd with Jason Plato in 5th. As we moved into the last 5 minutes, it became apparent that space on track was proving to be an issue and the drivers were only able to improve their times if they found some clear space. Andrew Jordan managed this to go up to 3rd and Colin Turkington was able to improve his time to be just under half a second faster than anyone else with a new qualifying record for the circuit of 51.705 seconds.

Andrew Jordan pushing hard in his Pirtek Racing Honda Civic

At the end of the session it was Colin Turkington who was quickest, although this puts him 9th on the grid after the application of a penalty incurred at Snetterton. This means that he also loses the 1 championship point for pole position. The other major penalty to be applied after Snetterton was for Turkington's team-mate Rob Collard, who despite having the 9th fastest time is relegated to the back of the grid and accordingly will be one to watch in the first race.

The grid for race 1 tomorrow will therefore be Sam Tordoff on pole ahead of a fantastic 2nd place for Rob Austin in the Exocet Racing Audi A4. Andrew Jordan will start 3rd on the grid with Gordon Shedden 4th, Matt Neal 5th and Jason Plato 6th. Mat Jackson, Nick Foster, Colin Turkington and Aberdonian Glynn Geddie round out the top 10. The action from the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship gets under way tomorrow at 11:45 and we will bring you all of the action as it happens.

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