A stunning drive by James Pickford has seen the 26-year old Macclesfield driver out-qualify both his team-mates at Silverstone this afternoon by setting the 4th fastest time ahead of Round 25 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

Jason Plato was looking likely to join the SEAT Cupra Champion in the top five before a water pump problem prematurely cut short his session and he ended up in 7th. Not quite content with the set-up on his Toldeo Cupra, Luke Hines finished the 30 minute session on the 1.639 mile National Circuit in 10th.

James said: “I’ve had a good car all day as I was able to set fastest time in the first free practice session. That was fantastic as it’s the first time I’ve ever topped a practice session and it gave me a lot of confidence for qualifying. At the start of qualifying I was eleventh and I thought to myself ‘what’s going on’ as I was doing everything that I’d done in the morning but the time wasn’t there. Then we put a new set of tyres on and everything seemed to come together and work well, the balance of the car was good and I moved up to third instantly. From then on I was hoping and praying that not many people would go faster than me and as it happened only one person managed to go quicker. From then on I couldn’t seem to better my fastest lap, I could get close to it by getting a few tenths up on the first part of the lap but then I’d lose a tenth or two on last few corners. I’m absolutely chuffed to bits to be the lead SEAT and that’s set me up really well for the rest of the weekend.”

Jason said: “We’ve had something very strange happen in my car’s water system. I was third fastest on my first run and then on my second run I was on a flying lap and in the middle of Copse when I saw a warning light come on. On the exit of the corner I looked down and the water temperature was on one hundred and fourteen degrees and by the time I’d got into the braking area for Becketts it had gone up to one hundred and twenty five, so I knew then that I had a problem. On the exit of Becketts the temperature was over one thirty so I pulled off and I never got another run on those tyres. I think we’ve probably lost a water pump which would explain why the build up in pressure was so high.”

Luke said: “We’ve struggled a bit today to find the right set-up; we’re getting there as we’ve got quicker and quicker throughout the day, but we just can’t seem to find that extra couple of tenths that would put me up with the front runners. We put on a new set of front tyres thinking that that would help but it made things worse. It’s very close up at the front of the grid and James has done well, so I know that the speed is there in the car - we just aren’t quite there yet. I’m not too disappointed as this circuit suits our car well and I think we should go well tomorrow.”