WSR’s Daryl DeLeon stormed to a second-straight British Touring Car Championship pole position in a tense final qualifying session of 2025 at Brands Hatch on Saturday.
The Anglo-Filipino, who scored his maiden series pole last time out at Silverstone, was again a commanding force in the three-part, hour-long session on the Kent circuit’s renowned 2.6-mile Grand Prix layout to end the afternoon on top.
“Daryl’s done a fantastic job to qualifying on pole for the second event in a row, and on a circuit that couldn’t be more different to Silverstone in its characteristics,” commented Team Principal Dick Bennetts. “We’ve had pole position for three of the past four events and topped every part of qualifying and all but one practice session across the past two rounds. This shows the improvements we’ve made since the mid-season break and puts us in a good position to finish the season on a high.”
Daryl was second-fastest in his part of the opening ‘Q1’ phase qualifying (Q1), despite suffering a puncture, but the 20-year-old came to the fore to top Q2 segment and seal his progress to the ‘Quick Six’ pole-position shoot-out.
Entering the action late, Daryl had just four minutes in which to set a time that would potentially challenge for pole, and looked to have lost his chance when a storming lap was discounted due to him exceeding track limits.
This presented a ‘now or never’ situation for Daryl, who charged around his final lap to seal back-to-back pole positions by just 0.023 seconds.
It was a fourth pole of 2025 for WSR – more than any other team has achieved this season – and the third from the past four events following Charles Rainford at Knockhill and Daryl’s Silverstone success.
On a day when 0.058s covered the top four in Q3, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport driver Jake Hill qualified sixth, having earlier topped Group 2 of Q1 – in which he was the only BMW driver.
Tomorrow marks Jake’s final BTCC race before he ends a four-year stint in a WSR BMW and heads off to pursue his ambitions in international racing.
Qualifying eighth was LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR’s Charles Rainford, who is one of three drivers who will battle to become Jack Sears Trophy Champion on Sunday.
Charles, who beat Daryl to be fastest in Q1 Group 1, is currently second in the standings, eight points behind his polesitting team-mate. With 60 points available on Sunday, he knows the extent of the challenge he faces to seal the title.
Aiden Moffat, in the sister LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR BMW, was another to show excellent pace in Q1 after losing crucial track time in practice with an electrical issue.
The Scottish racer, like many others, saw several of his fast laps struck from the record for exceeding track limits, but will start 12th for Sunday’s opener.
The first of Sunday’s three races begins at 1125.
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