Gareth Howell, driving a Team Halfords Honda Integra, has qualified on pole position for the first of tomorrows (Sunday) three Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship races at the Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire. In the title race, championship leader Matt Neal was sixth fastest and chief rival Yvan Muller eighth.

Howell, aged 24, achieved the first pole position of his BTCC career in a time of 1m00.270s more than a quarter of a second up on second-fastest Tom Chilton in the Arena Motorsports Honda Civic. That was a considerable margin considering how close the competition was behind.

Howell said: "Id already done a time good enough for pole but went even faster at the end which I didnt think Id do as I thought Id out-braked myself into two corners, but that clearly did the trick."

Chilton added: "It sounds like a racing drivers excuse, but I genuinely was held up by another car at the last corner so could have gone quicker. I dont know if it would have been enough to beat Gareth, but Im happy with second. I can do a lot of damage from there "

Chiltons time was just 0.004s ahead of Team Halfords Dan Eaves in third. In turn, Eaves was only 0.012s clear of James Pickford achieving his best BTCC qualifying position in fourth in SEAT Sport UKs Toledo Cupra while a mere 0.011s behind in fifth was Colin Turkington in Vauxhalls Astra Sport Hatch. It all points to three very close races tomorrow around Silverstones short National circuit being raced on by the BTCC for the first time since 1995.

In the title race, Neal was sixth fastest in his Team Halfords Honda. Chief title rival Muller, the 2003 champion, was eighth in his Astra Sport Hatch. Qualifying between them in seventh was 2001 champion Jason Plato in his SEAT Toledo Cupra.

Neal commented: "Im actually not that happy and not feeling that confident. Im also in a bit of a Vauxhall sandwich with Turkington ahead and Yvan only two places behind."

Muller said: "Im not far off the pace, but its very close around here so Im down in eighth. Ill give it everything, as ever, but maybe it might be in race two, when the ballast in the cars has been re-adjusted after race ones result, that we can start to make some ground."

The first of tomorrows three races that will receive an hour of live air time on Britains biggest commercial terrestrial television channel ITV1 plus pan-European coverage on satellite and cable outlet Motors TV is scheduled to start at 10.20. All BTCC cars will sport on their registration plate panels miltonkeynes.com after the championship put on a spectacular high-speed show in front of 15,000 spectators in Milton Keynes city centre on Thursday night.