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British Touring Car Championship
Donington Park - Qualifying - 18/4/15

By MJP Media | 18 April 2015

Colin Turkington produces a blistering lap in qualifying to take pole position for Sunday's first Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race at Donington Park.

Colin Turkington being interviewed after securing pole position

Following their coming together in the first free practice session, Hunter Abbott's team had managed to repair his Audi A4 for qualifying, however Jack Goff was given an official reprimand and had his racing license endorsed with 2 penalty points. Qualifying would be interesting as the top five drivers from the free practice sessions had a mixture of success ballast and no ballast, with Donington Park a circuit that is known to penalise weight.

The first few minutes of qualifying revealed nothing as the cars circulated slowly whilst rotating tyres to get the optimal set up. After this initial period the serious times were set and the Team BMR Volkswagen CCs were the first to get up to speed with Jason Plato, Colin Turkington, Aron Smith and Warren Scott taking the top 4 places.

Colin Turkington's Team BMR Volkswagen CC

There was then drama as Gordon Shedden went off whilst on a fast lap, however a brilliant save saw him rescue his Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Type R from the gravel before going second fastest on the following lap, just 2/100ths of a second behind Jason Plato. Adam Morgan then put the WIX Racing Mercedes Benz A-Class up to 4th with Andrew Jordan 5th and Josh Cook 6th. With 16 minutes to go there was a red flag period as Andy Priaulx's Team IHG Rewards Club BMW 125i M Sport had a complete failure and parked at the side of the road in a dangerous place, just after the old hairpin.

The clock restarted with 16 minutes left to go and the drivers were quick to get back out and restart the action. Aron Smith came in and immediately retired whilst back in 9th place to ruin what had been a very good day for him and the team up to that point. The clock had ticked down to the ten minute mark when Andrew Jordan spun his MG 6GT, spoiling what had looked like a fast lap.

Power Maxed Racing are delighted with their qualifying result

In the last 10 minutes, Colin Turkington went to the top of the leader board ahead of Jason Plato despite having 33Kg of success ballast on board and laying any doubt to rest about his front wheel drive skills. Andrew Jordan had yet another spin to add to that of Jack Goff suggesting that the MGs are not quite set up right for the Donington Park circuit. At the flag it was Colin Turkington with provisional pole, Gordon Shedden 2nd, Jason Plato 3rd, Adam Morgan 4th and Andrew Jordan 5th. Also worthy of special mention are the Power Maxed Racing team with Josh Cook qualifying 6th and Dave Newsham 10th for their best qualifying result since Power Maxed took over the team during the winter.

Tomorrow's races look likely to be very hotly contested as only one second separates the top 13 cars on the grid. The smart money has to be on the Team BMR Volkswagen CCs or the Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Type Rs, however the MGs, Mercedes' and Chevrolet's may just have a part to play! Join us here for the action tomorrow from all three races.

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