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British Touring Car Championship
Silverstone - Qualifying - 26/9/15

By MJP Media | 26 September 2015

Mat Jackson consolidates his earlier dominant performance by securing pole position for the first race at Silverstone tomorrow.

Mat Jackson dominates to take pole position

As the drivers took to the track in the qualifying session for tomorrow's first Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race, the news from the Team BMR RCIB Insurance garage was that team owner and driver Warren Scott had been diagnosed with two cracked vertebrae following his accident in the earlier free practice session where his Volkswagen CC impacted heavily with a concrete wall, deforming the front of the car. Scott will not be taking any further part in the weekend's activities.

As the session got under way it was Hunter Abbott in the AlcoSense Audi A4 and Mat Jackson in the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus who set the early pace exchanging provisional pole position several times. Jackson was topping the time sheets when the session was temporarily halted after 10 minutes due to Alex Martin's Dextra Racing Ford Focus getting stranded in a gravel trap. After a short delay the session resumed with the drivers intent on continuing their qualifying strategies.

Gordon Shedden ahead of team-mate Matt Neal

With the session re-started, the lap times continued to drop however a number of drivers had their lap times disallowed for exceeding the track limits. Mat Jackson held his position at the top of the time sheet to secure pole position with a time of 58.078 seconds - nearly half a second quicker than his best time in the earlier free practice sessions and a new qualifying lap record for the circuit. Jackson's pole position represents the 2nd pole position for Motorbase Performance in as many meetings and demonstrates that although sitting out the first half of the season, the team are clearly at the top of their game and a force to be reckoned with.

Gordon Shedden qualified 2nd for Honda Yuasa Racing in his Civic Type R with Sam Tordoff 3rd in his JCT600 Racing with GardX BMW 125i M Sport. Andrew Jordan qualified 4th for MG 888 Racing and will start the first race on the 2nd row of the grid alongside Tordoff. The 3rd row will see Power Maxed Racing's Dave Newsham alongside the defending BTCC champion Colin Turkington with Tom Ingram and Aron Smith on row 4.

Sam Tordoff was the fastest of the BMW drivers

The big surprise of the session was championship contender Jason Plato who qualified 10th in his Team BMR RCIB Insurance Volkswagen CC. The former BTCC champion was 15th and 11th in the earlier free practice sessions which is not unusual as he generally works through a planned programme of development leading up to the qualifying session. Qualifying 10th, Plato was clearly struggling around the Silverstone National Circuit.

Jason Plato was not the only former BTCC champion to struggle today. Matt Neal was 12th in both the earlier free practice sessions and 11th in the qualifying session despite his Honda Yuasa Racing team-mate Gordon Shedden qualifying 2nd whilst carrying maximum success ballast. With 7 different makes of car in the top 7 positions and 23 drivers qualifying within a second of pole-sitter Mat Jackson, the scene is set for a thrilling day of racing tomorrow.

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