Luke Hines and Jason Plato will start from the second row of the grid in Round 16 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship tomorrow after qualifying 2nd and 3rd respectively in a rain soaked qualifying session at Mondello Park in Ireland. James Pickford also made the most of the treacherously slippery conditions to set 6th fastest time –his best BTCC qualifying position to date.

Rain hampered qualifying from start to finish at the Mondello Park circuit (situated near Naas in Co. Kildare) delaying the start by 20 minutes due to a waterlogged track and causing the red flag to come out three times in the first 14 minutes as cars slid off the slippery track.

With little chance of it ever being dry enough to run on slicks, SEAT Sport UK made sure all three of its Toledo Cupras were out on the circuit first, for while it was not raining the track conditions were likely to be at its best at the beginning of qualifying. Plato immediately did an ultra-fast lap, but the first red flag came out just 50 metres before he crossed the finish line. His time of 1:56.9 would have put him 2nd on the grid, but it did not count. The team’s forecasts proved correct and the track conditions were never that good again.

Having been fastest in the morning’s first free practice session, Luke held 2nd position in qualifying (0.625 seconds behind pole-sitter Yvan Muller) until the very last moment of the session when Colin Turkington’s last lap was a mere 0.2 seconds quicker. It was still a great performance by Luke, which saw him qualify as the top SEAT driver for the first time.

Having not raced at Mondello Park since 1999, James spent the two free practice sessions in the morning learning his way around and setting the Toledo Cupra up for qualifying. His planned worked to perfection, as he will line up alongside BTCC leader Matt Neal after a brilliant qualifying run.

Jason said: “That was so frustrating because my first lap was pole by a mile but fifty yards before I crossed the line the session was red flagged. Then I lost the next two laps as well to red flags and with ten minutes of the session left I had no time on the board. Also when the circuit starts to lose some water and gets greasy like it did towards the end of the session and we’ve got the car set up for wet we start to lose the balance a bit. It’s annoying because that first lap, which was a one minute fifty six point nine would have been pole until Yvan Muller set that stellar lap.”

James said: “That’s got to be my best qualifying session to date. It wasn’t the easiest of sessions due to all the red flags and I think all three of us were robbed of our fastest laps at the start of the session before the first red flag, but I’m pleased with sixth in the circumstances especially considering it’s been six years since I’ve raced here. Our car definitely performs at its best on full wet set up so I’ll be doing a rain dance tonight along with the rest of the team.”

Luke said: “I lost half a second in the last sector of my fastest lap so all in all it could have been a lot better but I’m really happy with third. All three of us are up the sharp end now and hopefully we can cause some stick in the races tomorrow. I like racing in the wet and it just came together for me today and I got everything right. After Croft I cooled myself down and thought about everything and came here determined to perform well for the team and third fastest in qualifying is a good start.”