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British Touring Car Championship
Croft - Qualifying - 18/6/16

By MJP Media | 18 June 2016

Colin Turkington leads the way in the qualifying session at Croft Circuit to put his Silverline Subaru BMR Racing Levorg GT on pole for the first race tomorrow.

Colin Turkington takes pole position for the first race tomorrow

With Aiden Moffat and Daniel Lloyd topping the time sheets in the free practice sessions at North Yorkshire's Croft Circuit earlier today, attention turned to the qualifying session which determines the grid for the first for the three Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship races tomorrow and with pole position, the opportunity to earn the first championship point of the weekend.

As the session got under way it was the WSR-prepared BMW 125i M Sports that took to the track first with Sam Tordoff carrying the maximum 75Kg of success ballast as championship leader followed by team-mates Rob Collard and Jack Goff. The first meaningful lap times were set by the Silverline Subaru BMR Racing Levorg GTs with Colin Turkington, James Cole and Jason Plato at the top of the time sheet before Matt Neal went 2nd fastest ahead of Rob Collard and Jack Goff.

Daniel Lloyd will also start on the front row of the grid

Colin Turkington was the first driver to post a sub 1:24 lap time as Tom Ingram went 2nd fastest in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis. Ingram was then pushed out as Jake Hill took 2nd place in his RCIB Insurance Racing Toyota Avensis. With 12 of the 30 minutes gone, Turkington was still the only driver with a sub 1:24 lap time. A couple of minutes later Matt Neal went 7th fastest in his Halfords Yuasa Racing Honda Civic Type R as Aiden Moffat moved up to 13th.

The session was red-flagged half way through following a coming together between Matt Neal and Rob Collard. The session resumed a few minutes later with Colin Turkington fastest ahead of Jake Hill, Tom Ingram, Sam Tordoff, Daniel Lloyd and Rob Collard. Tordoff soon moved up to 2nd place but could not break the 1:24 barrier. Turkington then had his lap times removed for exceeding the track limits but went back to the top of the time sheet with another sub 1:24 lap.

Matt Neal and Rob Collard make friends after their incident

MG Racing RCIB Insurance's Ashley Sutton put in a flying lap in his MG6GT to take 2nd place behind Colin Turkington as a few laps later, Gordon Shedden moved up to 10th and Jason Plato moved up to 3rd. In the closing seconds BTCC rookie Daniel Lloyd, who was lying in 10th place, put in a blistering lap to go 2nd fastest in his Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type R, continuing his recent run of good form.

After an action-packed qualifying session it was Silverline Subaru BMR Racing's Colin Turkington, the only driver to put in a sub 1:24 lap time, who took pole position for the first race tomorrow. Turkington will be joined on the front row of the grid by Daniel Lloyd with Ashley Sutton and Jason Plato on row 2. Row 3 will see Sam Tordoff and team-mate Jack Goff with their BMWs. With Turkington carrying no success ballast in his Levorg GT he has a very good change of repeating his race-winning performance from Oulton Park however he will have highly motivated drivers behind him who will have other plans!

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media