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British Touring Car Championship
Brands Hatch (Indy) - Qualifying - 29/3/14

By MJP Media | 29 March 2014

Qualifying from Brands Hatch sees 5 former champions in the top 5 places ahead of tomorrow's first race of the 2014 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

Andrew Jordan put his Pirtek Racing Honda Civic on pole

As the cars headed out for the first qualifying session of the 2014 season, it was Rob Austin in the Exocet Racing Audi A4 who was the first to go under 50 seconds on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit as the cars did their initial laps.

In this morning's free practice sessions, the fastest lap time was 48.345 seconds, set by the MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save MG6 of Jason Plato, however this was beaten by the Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Tourer of Matt Neal on his 6th lap with a 48.321, closely followed by team-mate Gordon Shedden only 500ths of a second behind. In an immediate response, Jason Plato, the fastest man this morning in free practice, soon got into his stride took the lead 2 laps later.

Jason Plato had to settle for 2nd on the grid

Defending BTCC champion Andrew Jordan in the Pirtek Racing Honda Civic and Aron Smith in the Chrome Edition Restart Racing Volkswagen CC were pushing hard at the half way point of the session and were sitting 4th and 5th respectively. eBay Motors driver Rob Collard was sitting in 6th with team-mate Colin Turkington 7th, Adam Morgan 8th, Mat Jackson 9th and Alain Menu 10th. With 15 minutes of the session remaining the big moves started to be seen. Tom Ingram in the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis moved up to 5th and all three of the eBay Motors BMW 125i M Sports moved into the top 10. Rob Austin improved to 9th and with 10 minutes to go, Jason Plato consolidated his position at the top of the table with a time of 48.240 seconds.

Towards the end of the session and with everyone pushing hard, several drivers had their lap times disallowed for exceeding the track limits including Laser Tools Racing's Aiden Moffat, Crabbie's Racing's Jack Clarke and United Autosports team-mates Glynn Geddie and James Cole.

Tom Ingram was the fastest 'non-champion' in 6th place

With 5 minutes left on the clock, Andrew Jordan went up to 2nd behind Jason Plato while Colin Turkington moved up to 3rd. Jordan then put the hammer down and took provisional pole ahead of Plato. Also on the charge was Alain Menu in his Chrome Edition Restart Racing Volkswagen CC who went up to 8th ahead of the Airwaves Racing Ford Focus ST of Mat Jackson. The star of the session was Tom Ingram who, in his first ever BTCC qualifying session in a front wheel drive car, was 6th with only former BTCC champions ahead of him.

The grid for the first race of the day tomorrow sees Andrew Jordan in pole position with Jason Plato 2nd, Colin Turkington 3rd, Matt Neal 4th and Gordon Shedden 5th. Tom Ingram will start from 6th on the grid with Aron Smith 7th, Alain Menu 8th, Mat Jackson 9th and Rob Collard completing the top 10. With the first point of the season going to pole-sitter Andrew Jordan, the scene is set for some stunning and exciting action tomorrow.

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media