Darren Turner emerged from a rush-hour type Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship qualifying session around the Silverstone National Circuit as the fastest of the three SEAT Sport UK drivers – although even his best lap, which will see him start tomorrow’s first of three BTCC races from 4th place, was slowed because of traffic. With 26 cars on the track, getting a clean lap was virtually impossible, yet James Thompson was happy with 7th and Jason Plato less so having qualified 13th.

Darren will start Round 28 from the second row of the grid, alongside Matt Neal, having lapped the 1.6390 mile circuit in a time of 1:00.650 – which was just 0.239 slower than pole-sitter Gareth Howell. James, driving his WTCC Leon, set a time of 1:00.744, which puts him on the fourth row.

Jason’s 39th birthday celebrations haven’t gone to plan today. A transmission problem saw him miss all of the second free practice session and despite doing all he could in qualifying, the 2001 Champion could only manage a time of 1:01.073, 0.662 seconds off the pole position time that he was aiming for.

With Darren qualifying ahead of all the Vauxhall drivers, SEAT is in the perfect position to win the BTCC Manufacturers’ title, which was the team’s main at the beginning of the season. With only two cars able to score points, SEAT has nominated Jason and James to score Manufacturer points, leaving Darren free to go for races wins.

Darren said: “That was very close – at one stage only a few thousandths of a second covered the top four drivers. For our third and final run we put new tyres all round, rather than just on the front, and it seemed to work well. I could have gone quicker, because on my two best laps I was delayed in traffic and then I had a relatively clear run but by then by tyres were passed there best, so I couldn’t improve on my time. But traffic is just one of those things you have to deal with and it’s not an excuse. We’ve qualified ahead of Vauxhall and beating them to the Manufacturers’ title will be the priority tomorrow and we won’t be doing anything to jeopardise that.”

James said: “That was a pretty tight session, but we knew it was always going to be like that. Qualifying-wise we weren’t very aggressive, but we have a really good race set-up for tomorrow so I’m not too disappointed to be starting from seventh. I’ve won races from further down the grid than that. Winning the Manufacturers’ title is the main aim and we’ve got a great chance of doing that.”

Jason said: “I’m really disappointed because we’ve got no pace in the car. We’re in good shape to win the Manufacturers’ title, but what slender chance I had of winning the Drivers’ title is now gone. But that’s life. We’ve been below par today and on a short circuit when every thousandths of a second count you pay a heavy penalty."