Jason Plato took his third pole position in a row at Silverstone, joined on the front row for the penultimate round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship by championship leader, Colin Turkington.
The double champion recovered from a lurid moment at the start of the session heading through Luffield, moving onto pole position instantly with the following tour in his Triple Eight MG6.
Plato’s fourth – and first flying – lap was enough for an ultimate pole position time of 58.511s, securing his third pole of the season.
The session was anything but a dominant one for the MG ace however, only the mere 0.091s covering the top four drivers at the conclusion of the 30-minute session.
Turkington leaped into second spot in the final five minutes of the action to join his championship rival on the front row, the West Surrey Racing man pushing Sam Tordoff down to row two which he will share with the Airwaves Racing Ford Focus of Mat Jackson.
Aron Smith was at one stage third on the grid in the BMR Racing Volkswagen CC, but was demoted two spots down to fifth and row three in the closing minutes, where he will be joined by sixth-placed team-mate, Alain Menu.
Tom Ingram‘s sublime qualifying performances of 2014 continued at Silverstone, seventh place the final finishing spot for the Speedworks Motorsport man who lay fifth at one stage.
Marc Hynes demonstrated the pace of MG further by qualifying eighth on the grid, the top 10 rounded out by Adam Morgan and Rob Austin.
Rob Collard finished just outside the top 10 in the second WSR BMW 125i, although the works Honda Yuasa Racing squad suffered a session to forget. Gordon Shedden qualified down in 17th place, making his job to haul in Turkington’s 64-point advantage even trickier.
Matt Neal could only manage 18th on the grid, while Aiden Moffat out-qualified the pair of them and reigning champion Andrew Jordan in the Chevrolet Cruze, plus a fourth champion in Fabrizio Giovanardi.
Dave Newsham suffered a nightmare qualifying after he suffered an off into the barriers within two minutes that ended with his AmD Tuning Ford Focus terminally wounded for the rest of the session.
Luke Hines ended the first qualifying session of his return to the BTCC down in 26th for United Autosports, forced to pull over with mechanical problems, as did 13th-placed Jack Goff.
