Turkington on pole ahead of Touring Car racing at Croft

Turkington – dubbed the 'King of Croft' during his West Surrey Racing days – will be looking to add to his tally of ten victories at the North Yorkshire circuit tomorrow, and he'll be quietly confident of doing so after producing a commanding performance in qualifying.

Jake Hill spins wildly during qualifying

The double BTCC champion controlled the session, continuing to raise the bar throughout the 30 minutes of running. Turkington kept his rivals at arm's length for the most part, and was able to extend the advantage whenever his supremacy looked in doubt.

His first benchmark lap time was a 1:24.291s, as Halfords Yuasa Racing's Matt Neal initially slipped into second. Sam Tordoff, Tom Ingram and the talented youngster Jake Hill then took turns to relegate Neal slightly down the order, but considerably worse was to follow for the Honda driver.

As the session reached mid-distance Neal's Honda Civic Type R approached Rob Collard's BMW at speed, with the latter having just left the pit lane on cold tyres. Although Collard looked to give Neal room to pass on the inside at Hawthorn's, the two cars made contact, ending both of their challenges on the spot.

"I thought there was enough space but unfortunately we just touched wheels," was Neal's take on proceedings.

"Matt misjudged the gap," claimed Collard. "I was on cold tyres and left a gap. He’s apologised, he got it wrong, but it doesn’t bring qualifying back for me. I’d shown good pace and we were looking for a potential top five – it’s very frustrating."

The Clerk of the Course adjudged that Neal was in the wrong as he was handed a post-qualifying reprimand and two penalty points on his licence for his part in the incident.

Turkington was into the 1:23s bracket before the stoppage to retrieve Neal and Collard's stricken cars, but the pace quickened further after the restart.

Jeff Smith, Adam Morgan and Jason Plato were among those to recover from spins, whilst Ashley Sutton slid wildly on two separate occasions, but critically without any lasting damage to his MG6.

Incredibly the young MG Racing RCIB Insurance driver bounced back brilliantly from his double setback, as he and another BTCC rookie – Daniel Lloyd – produced late heroics. Sutton blasted into second, only to be immediately pipped by Lloyd's Eurotech Honda. The 24-year-old Yorkshireman had already performed admirably during practice, and he astonishingly backed that up by scoring his second front row start in succession.

Turkington had lowered the target further still before the finish, as Lloyd and Sutton wedged themselves between the Ulsterman and the sister Subaru of Plato.

Championship leader Tordoff had to settle for fifth, but it was still a great effort for the Team JCT600 with GardX driver in his maximum ballast-laden BMW. Jack Goff left it late to grab sixth in the Team IHG Rewards Club BMW, whilst Hunter Abbott was later still in securing his best qualifying result of seventh.

It was an encouraging display from Power Maxed Racing's Abbott, who had earlier signalled his intent to score solid points at Croft this weekend.

The Motorbase Performance pairing of Andrew Jordan and Mat Jackson were next on the timesheets, whilst WIX Racing's Adam Morgan did well to recover from ride height failure and an earlier spin to claim tenth.

Colin Turkington said: "I’ve always really enjoyed driving at Croft, no matter what the car. I usually go well here. Like at Oulton Park, we gradually improved the Subaru throughout the day, and qualifying was the first time we bolted on fresh rubber. I need to say a big ‘thank you’ to the boys for giving me a great car again, and it’s fantastic to be able to reward them with another pole position."

Daniel Lloyd said: "We took a bit of a risk at the end of the session and we only really had one lap to move up the order. It was great to really make that lap count. It’s mega to be on the front row for the second weekend on the bounce, particularly now that I’ve got a bit of experience of competing at the front in the BTCC. Racing is obviously another kettle of fish and I got caught out on a couple of occasions at Oulton, but I won’t be letting that happen again!"

Ashley Sutton said: "I made a mistake on my first lap. We then put on another new set of tyres and went back out. I was on a really good lap, which was two tenths faster than the one that eventually put me third, but I lost the car again at turn 12.

"I had to make quite a big save, which hurt the tyres a little bit, and then the next lap was the one that got me the grid position. That said if someone would have told me before the weekend that I would qualify third at a predominantly rear-wheel drive track I would definitely have taken it. I’m over the moon."

2016 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship – Qualifying – Croft Circuit:

1 Colin TURKINGTON (GBR) Silverline Subaru BMR Racing 1m23.608s (91.49mph)

2 Daniel LLOYD (GBR) Eurotech Racing +0.397s

3 Ashley SUTTON (GBR) MG Racing RCIB Insurance +0.400s

4 Jason PLATO (GBR) Silverline Subaru BMR Racing +0.412s

5 Sam TORDOFF (GBR) Team JCT600 Racing with GardX +0.445s

6 Jack GOFF (GBR) Team IHG Rewards Club +0.460s

7 Hunter ABBOTT (GBR) Power Maxed Racing +0.463s

8 Andrew JORDAN (GBR) Motorbase Performance +0.576s

9 Mat JACKSON (GBR) Motorbase Performance +0.621s

10 Adam MORGAN (GBR) WIX Racing +0.645s 11 Jake HILL (GBR) RCIB Insurance Racing +0.681s

12 Tom INGRAM (GBR) Speedworks Motorsport +0.703s

13 Robert COLLARD (GBR) Team JCT600 Racing with GardX +0.724s

14 Aron SMITH (IRL) BKR +0.773s

15 Gordon SHEDDEN (GBR) Halfords Yuasa Racing +0.825s

16 Rob AUSTIN (GBR) Handy Motorsport +0.849s

17 Matt NEAL (GBR) Halfords Yuasa Racing +0.915s

18 Josh COOK (GBR) MG Racing RCIB Insurance +1.055s

19 Michael EPPS (GBR) RCIB Insurance Racing +1.061s

20 Aiden MOFFAT (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +1.113s

21 Warren SCOTT (GBR) Silverline Subaru BMR Racing +1.219s

22 Ollie JACKSON (GBR) AmD Tuning.com+1.251s

23 Martin DEPPER (GBR) Eurotech Racing +1.322s

24 Daniel WELCH (GBR) Goodstone Racing +1.442s

25 James COLE (GBR) Silverline Subaru BMR Racing +1.452s

26 Jeff SMITH (GBR) Eurotech Racing +1.473s

27 Alex MARTIN (GBR) Dextra Racing +1.517s

28 Matt SIMPSON (GBR) Speedworks Motorsport +1.742s

29 Kelvin FLETCHER (GBR) Power Maxed Racing +2.016s

30 Chris SMILEY (GBR) TLC/RCIB Insurance Racing +2.301s

31 Stewart LINES (GBR) Maximum Motorsport +3.146s

32 Mark HOWARD (GBR) BKR +3.327s