VX Racing arrives at Snetterton this weekend with a milestone of British Touring Car Championship history in its sights – 100 race wins. With 98 wins recorded since the British car manufacturer entered in 1991, Vauxhall has the chance to reach the century tomorrow. A tough qualifying session for Vauxhall resulted in Yvan Muller as the lead VX Racing Astra Sport Hatch lying in fourth place on the grid for tomorrow’s first race, with Colin Turkington lining up alongside him in fifth and Gavin Smith further back on the fifth row in ninth place.

Muller was the first of the three VX drivers to show his pace in the qualifying session, topping the timesheets in the early stages. Turkington shadowed his team-mate to briefly lie behind the Frenchman, with Smith staying within the top ten. As the session drew to a close, Muller changed tyres and headed out for a final charge for pole, but 36kg of ballast weighed down the car and he was forced to settle for his fourth place spot. Turkington was also unable to improve on fifth place, while Smith after lying in tenth for much of the session inherited ninth spot after a technical infringement by fellow competitor, James Pickford.

The earlier two practice sessions had seen Muller open his weekend where he finished at Mondello, topping the leaderboard in the first of the sessions, with Smith and Turkington both finishing in the top ten, as the three VX Racing drivers worked on setup in preparation for afternoon qualifying. All three drivers used the second of the practice periods to develop the car set-up for the three 16 lap races tomorrow. At the end of the second 40-minute session Muller had recorded the fifth fastest time, Smith was ninth fastest and Turkington right behind in tenth.

The three VX Racing drivers summed up their day saying:

Yvan Muller

“It’s the most I could expect with the weight I’m carrying. It’s probably more than I expected, so I’m quite happy with fourth fastest. The Honda’s are quick and they’re running lighter and Matt (Neal) is behind. We have a big car and are quite slow in the straights, so this is a good start. I’m not sure whether I’ll improve my position by the end of the race, but we’ll see tomorrow.”

Colin Turkington

“I was suffering from oversteer this morning and it was a bit light on rear grip, but I got the car settled down and it was better in qualifying. You’re never happy when you’re not on pole, but you can’t expect to be quickest all the time. On my fastest qualifying lap it was quite clean, I felt that I got as much out of the car as I could. For tomorrow, we should be okay. Generally if you’ve got a good car in qualifying you should be okay for the race.”

Gavin Smith

“The times are very, very close. I’m only three and a half tenths off Yvan and I’m quite pleased about that, but it’s so close that it’s put me quite far back. Time wise, I’m quite happy and we have a good race car for tomorrow with a good race setup, so let’s see what happens. There’s so much pushing and shoving at the beginning, I’m just going to try and stay out of trouble, make up a few places on the opening lap, let it settle down and then see where it goes from there.”

The 2005 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship is the first year of competition for the VX Racing Astra Sport Hatch. This year VX Racing will be aiming to repeat the triple-title winning success of the past four years.