Matt Allison mastered the tricky wet conditions to take pole position for Rounds Nine and Ten of the 2011 AirAsia Renault Clio Cup UK at Croft. They are the Scuderia Vittoria driver's first pole positions of the season and came in a session which saw many of the series front-runners struggle.
Former BTCC driver Allison set a best time of 1min 39.856s around the 2.1 mile circuit, 0.592s ahead of his team-mate Luke Wright, making it a one-two on the grid for the Scuderia Vittoria team. Wright’s second fastest time put him third on the grid for the weekend's second race.
Pipping Wright to second place on the grid for the second race was Chris Swanwick, who enjoyed his strongest qualifying results of the season so far. The Team Pyro driver's fastest time of 1min 40.507s puts him third on the grid for race one. Lining up fourth for both the races will be Total Control Racing's Tom Grice, who set a best time of 1min 40.659s.
A surprise fifth fastest was Grice's team-mate Mark Proctor, by far his best performance since returning to racing this season. He will line up on row three with Pyro's Craig Currie, also taking his best qualifying result of the season so far. The duo will line up twelfth and eighth respectively for race two.
Westbourne Motorsport's James Colburn lines up seventh and fifth for the two races, while also enjoying strong runs were Pyro pair Jack Goff and Adam Bonham. Oulton Park race winner Goff will line up eighth and seventh, with Bonham tenth and sixth.
Both the championship leaders struggled in the session, with James Dixon only twelfth and eleventh for the two races, while former double champion Paul Rivett ended up bottom of the timesheets in sixteenth for both, leaving him with a tricky task in the races. Also struggling was double winner at Thruxton Aron Smith, who lines up thirteenth for both.
The session came to a premature end after Nicolas Hamilton went off at Tower with three minutes to go. Before the incident, the Total Control Racing driver had set times putting him fifteenth for both.
