TURKINGTON TAKES BTCC POLE POSITION AT KNOCKHILL
Vauxhall driver Colin Turkington has taken pole position
for the first of tomorrow's (Sunday) three Dunlop MSA British
Touring Car Championship races at the Knockhill circuit in
Scotland.
 Turkington
achieved pole with a best lap time of 54.076 seconds in his
Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch - the fastest ever lap for a BTCC
car around the Fife circuit. It is also his third pole position
so far this season.
Gareth Howell impressively took second position on the grid
in his first race in Team Halfords' Honda Integra. Third was
Vauxhall's Yvan Muller and fourth the driver he is chasing
for the lead of the championship, Team Halfords' Matt Neal
. Completing the top six were Neal’s team-mate Dan Eaves
and Tom Chilton, in the Arena Motorsports team’s Honda
Civic.
Turkington’s pole marked a return to form for the Ulsterman
– he experienced a difficult time recently at Snetterton
having previously won races at Croft and Mondello Park . He
also now leads the pole position stakes for 2005, with three
compared to the two of Chilton.
Turkington, aged 23 from Portadown, said: “My car has
been fast from the very first lap in practice this morning
and after what happened at Snetterton I’m really pleased
to be at the front. It’s also great to get pole at Knockhill
– it’s like a home circuit for me because I studied
at Stirling University and I’ll be going all out to
win in front of my friends and supporters here.”
Howell’s performance more than made up for a testing
accident he suffered prior to Knockhill. “The mechanics
have worked their backsides off to repair all the damage so
this is a great reward for them,” said 25-year-old Howell,
from Beckenham , Kent . “I’ve not driven a BTCC
car for more than a year now, so I’m delighted to be
on the pace so quickly.”
Tomorrow’s three races could have a crucial bearing
on the outcome of the title race. Championship leader Neal
is just 16 points clear of Muller and with 15 points awarded
for a race win the Frenchman will sense an opportunity to
eat into the Briton’s advantage. Muller also needs to
keep an eye out for third-placed Eaves who is just 11 points
behind.
Worth watching tomorrow will be the progress of SEAT Sport
UK team-mates Jason Plato and James Pickford and the WSR team’s
MG ZS driven by Rob Collard . Plato and Collard were first
and second in second free practice but could qualify only
seventh and 11th fastest on the grid. The fact that Pickford
took part in qualifying, let alone set the 12th fastest time,
was a miracle – he had crashed and rolled his Toledo
Cupra in practice, leaving his team to perform an incredible
repair job to ready it in time.
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