A storming lap from Jake Hill put WSR and BMW on the front row for the latest round of the British Touring Car Championship at Silverstone.
The Kent ace set three laps all good enough for second place on the grid aboard his ROKiT MB Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport, getting within just 0.037s of pole position at the Home of British Motor Racing.
Crucially for Jake, who is 23 points away from the series lead with six races left, his sixth front-row start of the year gives him a terrific opportunity to add to the nine podiums he’s already scored in 2022.
“It’s been ultimately a very good session for Jake and and more of a mixed one for Colin (Turkington) and Stephen (Jelley),” commented Dick Bennetts, Team Principal. “With Craig (Porley) unwell, we really had to pull together on the engineering side with Jake’s car, but Craig’s been on the phone and WhatsApp all day making sure Rob and I stay on track with things and it’s worked out pretty well today.
“We suspected that being without hybrid was going to affect Colin here more than at most other tracks just because of the nature of the circuit with long straights and medium-speed corners. Despite this, if we hadn’t had the red flag and he’d completed his lap with a tow, he’d probably have been in the top six, so we can be pretty confident that we have strong race pace from all three BMWs heading into Sunday.”
The jet-black BMW was able to complete three laps at near identical speed; Jake improving fractionally on his final run and doing so without a tow from his stablemates.
Remarkably this was achieved without the on-site presence of Race Engineer Craig Porley, who is unwell, but was providing support remotely as part of a collaboration with Team Principal Dick Bennetts and Data Engineer Rob Davidson.
Team BMW’s championship leader Colin Turkington arrived at Silverstone without the use hybrid power for practice and qualifying; a disadvantage estimated to be worth as much as 0.3 seconds to some of the other cars on the grid over a lap.
The Northern Irishman, who is chasing a record-breaking fifth title this year, qualified 10th; just 0.331s away from pole, at the circuit where he claimed a podium finish last year and a win in 2020.
Colin was cruelly denied a faster lap when the session was red-flagged for a stationary car at half-distance at exactly the time when the four-time champion was receiving a two-car tow from both Jake and Stephen Jelley.
Team-mate Stephen Jelley had earlier served notice of his speed by setting the second best time in the second free practice session.
But he was not able to repeat that achievement in qualifying; the Leicester racer not able to maximise the benefit of a two-car tow from Colin and Jake and then not finding a suitable tow in traffic after the red flag.
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