After clinching the 16th pole of his Dunlop MSA British Touring Car championship career at Croft, Colin Turkington admitted that Subaru “earned” their qualifying bragging rights.
The Silverline Subaru BMR Racing driver topped much of the 30-minute qualifying session on Saturday afternoon, a time of 1m23.608s enough to make it two consecutive pole positions for himself the new Levorg.
Turkington praised the efforts of the BMR outfit after clinching the feat, saying that Subaru deserved to be right at the sharp end once again.
“It’s nice to back up what we did at Oulton”, Turkington told The Checkered Flag afterwards. “This is certainly a circuit that we felt would suit our car because it’s got similar characteristics to Oulton.
“We worked hard on the car throughout the day, so I think we really deserved that pole.”
The double BTCC champion said that the series remains highly unpredictable, but had no qualms on just how much the Levorg GT has evolved over the first six months of its BTCC life.
“I think that you just don’t know what to expect in touring cars at the moment”, added Turkington. “We hadn’t run on the new rubber so we didn’t know what was coming, but certainly after the first few laps I knew the car was really fast.”
Asked on what specific parts of the North Yorkshire circuit he felt Subaru excelled at, Turkington admitted: “I don’t actually know!
“Normally we’ve been strong in sector three, but I haven’t had a close enough look yet to see. We’ve seemed strong at all parts of the circuit though I feel.
“We know where we’ve got to be and what we’ve got to do to sort our race balance”, Turkington said. “We’re starting to understand the car and starting to enjoy driving it.”
The circuit is one that Turkington has very fond memories of, having claimed 11 victories at during his BTCC career.
“I do enjoy this place”, he enthused of his visits to Croft. “It seems that, whatever car I’ve driven around here with, I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s a good place.”
