Oliphant puts Team BMW on third row at Thruxton

Tom Oliphant put Team BMW on the third row of the British Touring Car Championship grid at Thruxton with his best qualifying performance to date at the Hampshire circuit.

At BMW UK’s local circuit, Tom’s team-mate Colin Turkington ensured two of the WSR designed, built and run 330i M Sports will start Sunday’s opening race from inside the top 10.

“To come to a track like Thruxton – which is always going to favour front-wheel-drive cars in qualifying – and put two cars in the top 10 is a good result,” commented Dick Bennetts, Team Principal. “Tom’s done an excellent job to take the pace he showed in practice and repeat it in qualifying. He’ll be out for the best result possible tomorrow and the podium’s definitely our target.

“Colin’s been very impressive to be only a tenth of a second slower while also carrying 57kg success ballast and if we can continue to reduce his gap to the championship lead tomorrow then that will be mission accomplished.

“The team did a fantastic job on Stephen’s car to get him back out and he’ll be out to try to reward them tomorrow. Sunday’s payday and we’re going to make it count.”

Tom, fresh from celebrating his 31st birthday a week ago, was on superb form throughout Saturday and set the second-fastest time in afternoon practice at the 2.4-mile speedbowl, which is the fastest circuit on the BTCC calendar.

The Leamington Spa-based racer then translated that speed into qualifying to snatch fifth place on the grid – his best-ever Thruxton BTCC qualifying – with a time just three tenths of a second away from pole position.

Colin, who scored WSR’s 100th BTCC victory last time out at Knockhill, carried 57kg success ballast through practice and qualifying due to being third in the Drivers’ Championship, making the Northern Irishman’s BMW 3 Series one of the heaviest cars on the grid.

Despite this, the four-time series champion lapped just nine hundredths slower than Tom in qualifying, but this resulted in ninth place on the Race 1 starting grid due to the closeness of the competition for the front three rows.

Stephen Jelley endured a trying FP1 as he left the road, hit the tyre barriers heavily and brought out the red flags with a quarter of the session remaining.

Slick and quick teamwork by the WSR mechanics meant the damage was soon repaired, but with the gap between FP1 and FP2 so short, Stephen was still forced to miss the opening half of the second session.

The track time lost resulted in 15th place on the grid for tomorrow’s opener; the Leicester racer – who carries 21kg success ballast – targeting a significant move forwards during the trio of races.