Renault UK Clio Cup championship leader Ant Whorton-Eales has secured pole position for the opening race of the Oulton Park weekend, with Ash Hand taking the top spot for race two.
It marks the second consecutive season that Whorton-Eales has led the way in qualifying in Cheshire, though his best time of 1m 34.236s gave him the advantage by the narrowest of margins.
Just eight thousandths of a second separated the poleman and Paul Rivett, who secured his highest start of the season with WDE Motorsport. Whorton-Eales will start the second race from the front-row alongside Hand, while Rivett will line up down in sixth.
For Thruxton dominator Hand and his Team Pyro stablemate Ashley Sutton, it proved to be a session of mixed fortunes. While Hand took third for the opening race alongside his pole position, Sutton had set the outright best sector one time when the red flag came out with just over four minutes to go.
With the session not restarted, Sutton was left to settle for sixth and fourth on the grid for the two races in his Team BMR-backed Clio. Jordan Stilp meanwhile matched his best qualifying position of the year with fourth for the opener, alongside fifth for the second race.
For race one, Brett Smith took seventh on the grid ahead of Team Cooksport quartet Charlie Ladell, Jon Maybin, George Jackson and Rory Collingbourne. From their second best times, Maybin has seventh ahead of Smith, Ladell and Collingbourne, with Jackson fourteenth.
Dan Holland, who had qualified third on the grid for both races last time out at Thruxton, suffered a frustrating session meanwhile, and was left with fourteenth and twelfth place starts for the two encounters.
Full qualifying results can be found here.
