Photo by: JEP
Powered by Cataclean
BTCC coverage powered by Cataclean
Aron Taylor-Smith provided a surprise by giving British Touring Car Championship minnow Power Maxed Racing its second successive Silverstone pole position.
The Midlands squad’s Vauxhall Astra topped qualifying in 2023 in the hands of rookie Mikey Doble – the only driver to break the Alliance Racing Ford monopoly of pole positions.
This time around it was Taylor-Smith who mastered wet conditions, after rain fell before the second segment of qualifying, meaning his first BTCC pole since Thruxton in 2015.
Taylor-Smith had set a good enough time in the dry Q1 to scrape through, despite ending the session in the pits because the gear lever had broken off in his hand.
The PMR crew worked hard to get it fixed and Taylor-Smith’s first flying lap was enough to put him in the Quick Six shootout.
He then topped the final segment by 0.092 seconds from championship contender Tom Ingram.
Ingram’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N was allowed just three seconds per lap of turbo and hybrid power boost due to his championship position. He made it through in sixth place in his group in Q1, and then the rain enabled him to progress to an unexpected position on the front row.
Ingram had been “confident enough of top eight realistically” had it stayed dry, but pole was beyond Taylor-Smith’s wildest dreams.
“They were sweating getting the gear lever changed,” he said.
“It’s one of those where I was actually nearly in tears – from thinking I wasn’t going to get out to sticking it on pole was mental.”
Doble, who topped his Q1 group, put his own Astra in third place and has been a force all day at the start of a weekend where he could clinch the Jack Sears Trophy title for drivers who have never taken an overall podium before the start of the season.
But both he and Taylor-Smith face an anxious wait after appearing to face difficulties in passing the ride-height test in the pitlane at the end of Q3.
Colin Turkington was fastest in Q2, but the Northern Irish four-time champion could only make an incremental improvement in the Quick Six and ended up fourth in his West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport, on seven seconds per lap of hybrid.
Josh Cook was quickest in his Q1 group, and he ended up fifth at the wheel of his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla ahead of Dan Zelos, who did an excellent job on his second BTCC outing to place his Excelr8 Hyundai sixth.
Dan Cammish was fastest of those in Q2 not to make it into the final shootout. His Alliance Racing-run Ford Focus ST, running a one-off Valvoline livery this weekend as well as team-mate Sam Osborne, was seventh ahead of Andrew Watson’s Speedworks Toyota.
Championship leader Jake Hill, with just one second of hybrid, was an excellent second in his Q1 group in his WSR BMW, but found his rear tyres too highly pressured in the wet and slipped to ninth, with team-mate Adam Morgan next.
The biggest scalp from Q1 was Ash Sutton, his Ford in conventional NAPA livery. On 5s per lap of hybrid, he could set a lap good only for 17th on the grid despite clearly ragging the Focus.
Also out was free practice pacesetter Tom Chilton, whose confidence in running medium tyres on his Excelr8 Hyundai in Q1 proved misplaced.
1'02.288
+0.092
1'02.380
+0.126
1'02.414
+0.206
1'02.494
+0.436
1'02.724
+0.618
1'02.906
Source: Autosport