Jake Hill qualified an excellent second on the grid at Oulton Park as WSR and BMW secured a first front-row starting spot of the 2023 British Touring Car Championship.
The Kent ace put his Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport within two tenths of a second of pole position at the Cheshire track and credited his best qualifying spot of the year down to significant set-up changes to his BMW since the last event at Thruxton.
Jake’s result was achieved in the BTCC’s ‘Top-10 Showdown’ qualifying format, which gives the fastest 10 drivers from regular qualifying an additional 10 minutes to compete for pole position.
“I’m very happy for Jake,” commented Dick Bennetts, Team Principal. “He came here with a new set-up, persevered with it and it worked out nicely for him. I thought at one point we could have all four cars in the top 10, but the gaps were so close in Q1 that it was changing constantly.
“The fact that we have so many cars close together means it’s going to be difficult for anyone to make progress tomorrow, but I expect the BMWs to be fast on the soft tyre and if we’re sensible we should be able to make some progress.”
Having been third and fifth in Q1, Jake and Team BMW’s Colin Turkington both made it into the ‘Showdown’; four-time series champion and 10-time Oulton Park race winner Colin qualifying seventh.
Unfortunately he was put to the back of the grid for Sunday’s opener after not having enough fuel in his car for a post-session check.
This was due to having to complete additional laps on track after a red flag during Q1.
With eight tenths of a second covering the top 23 cars in afternoon practice, an ultra-tight session was anticipated, and so it proved with one tenth separating sixth and 12th places during Q1.
That left fellow Team BMW driver Adam Morgan – competing in front of his home crowd – agonisingly just 14 thousandths of a second away from making Q2.
Following the post-session alterations, the Lancashire racer was moved up to 10th on the grid for Sunday’s opener with team-mate and 2022 Oulton Park race winner Stephen Jelley 12th.
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