Tom Onslow-Cole will start from the front row of the grid, his first of the season, for tomorrow’s Round 19 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Snetterton in Norfolk.

The 20 year-old from New Malden, Surrey had looked on good form all day, setting the quickest first sector in the morning’s second free practice session and running fourth quickest overall for much of it.

After making a few minor adjustments to his Team RAC BMW 320si, the reigning Elf Renault Clio Cup Champion headed out into the 30 minute qualifying session looking for the critical three tenths of a second required to put him on the front row. Three quarters of the way through the session, the youngster pitted for fresh rubber and scorched around the Norfolk track to close to within two tenths of his team-mate Colin Turkington who starts from pole position.

“It’s fantastic,” said Tom. “I knew we had the pace in the car it was a case of putting it all together and we did. The racing driver in me still says there’s a tiny bit more to come so I’ll go away now and work on that in the debriefing.

“It’s particularly great to be up on the front row with my team-mate Colin at Team RAC’s home event, to have a 1-2 is awesome and the support already has been fantastic. This result is just going it gee everyone up and I can’t wait to get in and drive tomorrow morning.

“The car was good in free practice and we’ve been tweaking it all day. We came here this weekend with different set-ups and have stuck with them where generally we’ll agree on one between us and stick with that but today we’ve both been comfortable with what we’ve got. It’s obviously working but I still had a touch of understeer through qualifying which if we can get that dialled out we should be OK. But I’m ecstatic to be starting second, victory tomorrow is very much a realistic aim and this is the best opportunity I’ve given myself to get that win.”