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British Touring Car Championship
Rockingham - Qualifying - 6/9/14

By MJP Media | 6 September 2014

MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save get both their MG6s into the top 3 in qualifying at Rockingham as Sam Tordoff takes pole position for the first race tomorrow. Colin Turkington qualifies 2nd with Jason Plato 3rd.

Sam Tordoff will start the first race tomorrow from pole position

There was politics and drama at the top of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship this afternoon at Rockingham before a wheel had turned in qualifying! Following a reprimand by the race stewards for poor driving at Knockhill, Jason Plato was handed a '3 strikes' penalty for contact with Rob Austin and under the rules was given an automatic penalty requiring him to start at the back of the grid. His team appealed the original decision which was subsequently overturned, so Plato will start tomorrow's first race in whatever position he qualifies. He does however compete under the threat that any further warnings by the stewards will result in him starting the next available race from the back of the grid.

The weather relented for qualifying and the mist finally cleared, leaving a dry and warm session. In the early running it was the 3 MGs of Sam Tordoff, Jason Plato and Marc Hynes who topped the timings before Adam Morgan broke the monopoly, going third. Bizarrely, eBay Motors were running to a secret plan and with a third of the session gone they occupied the bottom 3 places! Colin Turkington then went out and on his first flying lap went third fastest before further drama ensued. Ollie Jackson in the STP Racing with Sopp + Sopp Proton Gen-2 blew an engine at Pif-Paf leaving fluid on the circuit and Colin Turkington, Warren Scott and Chris Stockton all spun off on it.

Championship leader Colin Turkington will also start on the front row

At the halfway point it was Sam Tordoff from Jason Plato, Colin Turkington, Alain Menu and Adam Morgan with Rockingham debutant Aiden Moffat a creditable 14th. There was then a problem for the whole field as Glynn Geddie abandoned his broken United Motorsports Toyota Avensis just after the Deene hairpin, causing yellow flags in the first sector and preventing drivers pushing too hard.

The Hondas were then able to find some free space on their second runs with Gordon Shedden going 4th and Matt Neal 5th in their Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Tourers. Shedden then went up to 3rd ahead of Turkington and both Menu and Jordan were able to get great laps in and put Neal back to 7th.

Jason Plato will start on the 2nd row for MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save

The last 5 minutes saw everyone trying to hook up that one special lap, however it seemed unlikely that anyone could catch Sam Tordoff who still had a massive half a second lead over the field. Adam Morgan was the first to post a big improvement when he put the Mercedes Benz A-Class into 6th, then championship leader Colin Turkington put the his eBay Motors BMW 125i M Sport into 2nd place behind Tordoff whilst everyone else was struggling to find space. This was mightily impressive when you consider that he was carrying 45kg of success ballast, whilst Tordoff was ballast free.

After an eventful qualifying session, the line-up for the first race tomorrow will be Sam Tordoff on pole along with Colin Turkington on the front row. Row two will see championship contenders Jason Plato ahead of Gordon Shedden. The third row will be Andrew Jordan and Adam Morgan with Marc Hynes, Alain Menu, Matt Neal and Mat Jackson rounding out the top 10. The championship hangs in the balance and the first corner of race 1 could prove decisive! All will be revealed here tomorrow.

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