Tom Onslow-Cole will line up on the seventh row for Round 28 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton tomorrow after posting the 13th quickest time in today’s qualifying session. Despite going into qualifying with high hopes of repeating his seventh quickest time in second free practice, the 20 year-old Team RAC driver couldn’t benefit from the improving track conditions.

With more grip going down as the day progressed, Tom was quick out of the blocks to top the time sheets early on in the session. However while a number of his rivals took advantage of slipstreaming their team-mates around the high-speed Hampshire circuit, Tom was unable to get into a position to follow teamster Colin Turkington, thus losing him crucial tenths.

Despite a determined late effort, Tom could manage no higher than a spot just outside the top ten leaving him with work to do, but confident in the race pace that has already taken him into the winners circle this season.

“Things didn’t go exactly to plan in qualifying. We’d set a quick pace in free practice and I was confident of being able to reproduce that in qualifying but sadly the time just didn’t come. Now we’ll have a look through the data from the session and see if we can find some time ahead of the races tomorrow.

“Thruxton is my favourite track though and one that has always given me good results so hopefully we can make up some ground in the races tomorrow. The BMW has great race pace so if I can capitalise on the fantastic start offered by the rear-wheel-drive then I should be able to finish in the top ten.”