British Touring Car Championship
Silverstone - Qualifying - 28/9/13
By MJP Media | 28 September 2013
Jason Plato and Sam Tordoff secure a front row lockout for MG KX Momentum Racing in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship qualifying session at Silverstone.
Jason Plato secures pole position for the first race tomorrow
Qualifying at Silverstone took place in cool conditions under a grey sky however the threat of rain stayed away. The only driver to miss out was Team BMR Restart's Warren Scott who, after an encouraging 6th fastest in the 2nd free practice session, suffered an alternator failure and the replacement part hadn't arrived by the start of the session.
In the early part of the session it was Jason Plato ahead of his team-mate Sam Tordoff with Dave Newsham 3rd, Frank Wrathall 4th and Colin Turkington 5th. Adam Morgan was running 6th to give Toyota three cars in the top 6, all with different teams. Also showing much better pace than in this morning's free practice sessions was the eBay Motors BMW 125i M Sport of Rob Collard in 7th. On his 17th birthday, Aiden Moffat was adjusting to the new car, lapping ahead of Nick Foster's BMW and the S2000 cars of Lea Wood and Liam Griffin.
Sam Tordoff will join Jason Plato on the front row for race one
As the session progressed, several drivers had their best times removed for exceeding the track limits including Gordon Shedden, Dan Welch and Adam Morgan. Frank Wrathall then failed a ride height test and all of his times were removed, moving Colin Turkington up to 4th.
The Honda Civic of Matt Neal was proving difficult to handle and a series of major slides plus a spin ruined his lap times. Then came an amazing lap by Andy Neate who, against all expectations, went 9th fastest but slipped to 10th as Jack Goff went 5th.
Dave Newsham continues his run of good form, qualifying 3rd
In the final 10 minutes, Frank Wrathall re-joined the fray and immediately went 5th fastest on his first flying lap. Jason Plato still led from Sam Tordoff, Dave Newsham and Colin Turkington. With only 4 minutes to go, championship leader Andrew Jordon retired his Pirtek Racing Honda Civic from the session whilst only 10th with the field struggling with traffic as all the remaining cars were out on track.
At the end of the session it was Jason Plato who took pole position in his MG KX Momentum Racing MG6 only 9 thousandths of a second ahead of his team-mate Sam Tordoff, giving the team a front row lockout for the first race tomorrow. Third was Dave Newsham in the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis with Colin Turkington 4th for eBay Motors and Frank Wrathall 5th for Dynojet. Jack Goff will be very happy with 6th ahead of Adam Morgan in 7th, Rob Collard 8th, Matt Neal 9th and Andrew Jordan rounding out the top 10. The disappointed drivers were Gordon Shedden 15th, Rob Austin 19th and Tom Onslow-Cole 21st.
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