Dan Rowbottom has taken a maiden British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) pole position around the Brands Hatch Indy circuit in a front row lockout with Halfords Racing with Cataclean (Team Dynamics) teammate Gordon Shedden.
A session which saw Jake Hill lead throughout and not a lot of drivers improving, the MB Motorsport driver finished third ahead of Tom Oliphant, Aidan Moffat, Tom Ingram, Ash Sutton, Chris Smiley, Josh Cook and Stephen Jelley.
After criticism from certain quarters about his inclusion in the squad alongside Shedden this season, Rowbottom has once again proved the doubters wrong and will aim for a first race win tomorrow.
While further down, Colin Turkington didn’t have a great session finishing 14th with many title contenders having poor sessions or having times expunged due to track limits offences.
To start off, 21 cars were covered by less than a second early in the session with Hill leading with 48.179 which was +0.078secs ahead of Oliphant with Ingram covering the top three as just over 20 minutes remained.
Rowbottom and Shedden improved to third and fifth respectively with the first tyre run seemingly coming towards the end with many drivers heading towards the pits.
The second half of the session began with around 16 minutes left as times looked to tumble on the fast circuit.
Turkington started the process of getting up the order with bests in Sector One but could only sit tenth. Shedden was absolute best in sector one and went into third place with 10 minutes to go behind Oliphant and Hill.
Morgan went into ninth but had his time expunged for exceeding track limits sitting 21st still with just over 9 minutes to go while Jackson similarly was sitting down the order for the same reasons.
Goff was improving all the time as he headed towards the top ten with just over five minutes left. Rowbottom suddenly went onto pole with 48.074 smashing in two personal bests as one of the only improving forerunners.
It was a Halfords Racing with Cataclean lockout as Shedden as he went +0.005secs behind his teammate with just under three minutes left as Sutton went off so he sat 7th still.
No other drivers really looked like breaking the top of the times with a minute left with only one lap left to change the order. Sutton did an absolute best in the opening sector but he couldn’t improve further.
The chequered flag was raised with the Rowbottom-Shedden one two confirmed with the top five locked out by Hill, Oliphant and Moffat as no-one improved further.
Full results to follow.
