Steven Kane will start from eighth place on the grid for the opening round of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch on Sunday (30 March) after a tremendous performance in qualifying for Motorbase Performance.

In a session hit by tricky weather conditions and interrupted by a red flag, Kane was a strong contender in the team’s BMW 320si and was only four-tenths of a second away from pole position. To underline the level of competition in the BTCC this season, Rob Collard in the other Motorbase BMW was less than three quarters of a second adrift of the pole time, but that equated to 13th place on the 25-car grid.

“I really enjoyed it,” reported Kane after qualifying. “I missed the weight check when I came into the pits and had to go round again, which cost me valuable time. I ended up missing laps for getting heat into the tyres,” said Kane, who was running slick tyres on a damp but drying track.

Then, in the closing moments of the session, Kane was on a faster lap when he just pushed too hard and ran onto the grass at Clearways. “I lost two or three tenths of a second,” he said. Had he been able to complete the lap as planned, it could have left him with a time good enough for the top five.

However, it was still an impressive showing for his first BTCC qualifying session. “For the first time it’s not too bad. This is a new experience for me and there’s definitely more time to come.”

Collard, too, has reason to be optimistic for Sunday’s three races. He has some ground to make up, but his determination and previous BTCC experience should serve him well in what is sure to be an all-action day of BTCC racing on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit.