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British Touring Car Championship
Snetterton (300) - Qualifying - 8/8/15

By MJP Media | 8 August 2015

Team BMR secure a 1-2-3 qualifying result for the first race of the day from Snetterton tomorrow with defending champion Colin Turkington taking pole position.

Colin Turkington will start at the front of the grid

Qualifying for the 6th meeting of the 2015 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Snetterton got underway without the number 16 car of Aiden Moffat who was airlifted to hospital with a suspected concussion following his crash in the second free practice session.

The cars headed out into the sunshine with Jason Plato holding the current qualifying lap record which he set last year. Once again the heat was in evidence with several cars suffering early lock-ups including Colin Turkington in the Team BMR Volkswagen CC. On the first of the quick laps it was Jason Plato with a 1:56.118 ahead of Andrew Jordan and Aron Smith with Rob Collard in fourth.

Aron Smith qualified 2nd in his Team BMR Volkswagen CC

With a third of the session gone, Aron Smith put in a blistering lap of 1:56.084 to go to the front and break Plato's lap record with Matt Neal and Andy Priaulx moving up to 4th and 5th. Immediately behind Priaulx, Sam Tordoff, Colin Turkington and Tom Ingram were putting in some great laps. The two returning Motorbase Performance cars were in 14th with Mat Jackson and 21st with for James Cole.

As the clock ticked down and with only 8 minutes left, Colin Turkington went almost half a second quicker than anyone else to take a provisional pole and shortly after, his Team BMR team-mate Aron Smith also improved to move up to second ahead of Jason Plato. Andrew Jordan remained 4th with Matt Neal in 5th. With just 2 minutes to go, Jack Goff got ahead of Sam Tordoff for 7th but then went off, spoiling his last lap.

Jason Plato completes a Team BMR 1-2-3 in qualifying

At the end of the session it was Colin Turkington ahead of Aron Smith and Jason Plato to give Team BMR a 1-2-3 on the grid going into tomorrow's racing. It also made Turkington the first driver to achieve 2 pole positions so far in 2015. Behind the three BMRs, Andrew Jordan and Matt Neal will still feel that they are in the hunt, so tight are the times and it looks like tomorrow will be as exciting as ever.

Rounding out the top 10 were Andy Priaulx, Jack Goff, Sam Tordoff, Tom Ingram and Rob Collard but with only 1 second covering the top 17 places and the top 8 beating the previous lap record, there is still a lot of action to be had in race one tomorrow. Gordon Shedden was a very disappointed 16th after power steering issues saw him sit out part of the qualifying session.

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