Jason Plato has taken his 50th British Touring Car Championship pole position at Knockhill, his first since the BTCC’s last visit to Scotland.
A last lap effort from the Subaru driver put him just nine hundredths of a second ahead of team-mate Ashley Sutton. The lap was investigated after the race, but Plato was cleared by BTCC officials.
Sutton was the pace setter in the damp conditions the session started in. He topped the times with a 56.397s lap around the Scottish circuit, six tenths of a second quicker than Plato’s best time at that point.
Early pace became irrelevant as drivers improved on the drying track. A late flurry of laps just before the chequered flag mixed up the order, with Plato snatching pole from Sutton on his final lap of the session.
The BMW duo of Colin Turkington and Rob Collard finished the session third and fourth.
Collard spent the majority of the session in the pits after reporting a problem with his car early on. West Surrey Racing was able to solve the issue before the end of the session, aided by two red flags to fix advertising boarding. He was able to complete a handful of laps towards the end of the session to finish seven tenths of a second behind Plato.
Tom Ingram took fifth, ahead of James Cole and Senna Proctor, who managed his best BTCC qualifying to date.
Dave Newsham finished eighth fastest, with championship leader Gordon Shedden ninth and Adam Morgan completing the top 10.
Feature image credit: Caroline Rhea
