Colin Turkington claimed a stunning British Touring Car Championship pole position in the most dramatic of circumstances at Snetterton while team-mate Tom Oliphant ensured both Team BMW cars will start inside the top eight.
The Northern Irishman saved his best until the very end of qualifying to clinch his second pole of the year in his WSR-run BMW 330i M Sport, improving by nearly half a second to head the field by 0.192 seconds.
The four-time champion, who was carrying 48kg success ballast due to his third place in the Drivers’ Championship, had made it into the 10-car pole-position shootout by going seventh-fastest in the 25-minute ‘Q1’ part of qualifying.
A set-up tweak, aimed at warming his BMW’s tyres faster, was performed during the five-minute interval between Q1 and the shootout, and helped Colin to score the pole-position bonus point, which cuts his gap to the series lead to just 11 points.
Team-mate Tom had spent practice experimenting with race set-ups for the championship-leading team, but was instantly one of the star performers in Q1.
Unfortunately, he had an ultra-fast lap removed for track-limit offences, which meant that he had slipped to 12th on the timesheets as the chequered flag came out and create a high-pressure situation on his final lap.
But the Leamington Spa-based driver responded in superb fashion with the fifth-best time of all, to secure his progress into the pole shootout at the last possible moment.
After being held up by slower traffic on his best lap, Tom put his BMW, which is carrying 30kg success ballast, seventh on the grid for the first of Sunday’s three races.
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