Chilton on pole as championship leaders struggle

Tom Chilton claimed his second pole position of the season at Snetterton, as the only driver to post a sub one-minute twelve seconds laptime in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session.

The youngest driver in the BTCC field, at just 20 years of age, Chilton set a best time of 1:11.835 in his Honda Civic Type-R.

Chilton said, “I’ve never qualified on the front row here before, so I really wanted to go a little bit quicker this time. I pushed really hard out there. I was on the grass on the last lap but I did almost exactly the same time on each of my three sets of tyres. The race is a completely different matter though.”

Alongside Chilton on the front row for round 19 of the championship will be Rob Collard after his best ever BTCC qualifying performance in the MG ZS.

Championship leading outfit Team Halfords looked set for a disappointing session until Dan Eaves set the third fastest time as the clock ticked down. Yvan Muller starts fourth in the first of the Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch models, with Colin Turkington fifth.

Matt Neal could manage no better than sixth fastest with his ballast-laden Honda Integra struggling on the fast Snetterton straights. He would have been seventh behind SEAT’s James Pickford, but the reigning Cupra champion failed to stop at the weighbridge in the pitlane and subsequently lost his qualifying times.

Luke Hines was seventh fastest, just ahead of teammate Jason Plato, who struggled throughout Saturday’s sessions. The top ten is rounded out by Gavin Smith and James Kaye.

Fiona Leggate starts 11th, with Mark Proctor 12th and Ian Curley 13th. Curley was the sole Lexus driver to take part in the session and his teammate Richard Williams will start from the back of the grid after failing to post a time.