MacDowall's shock at the Knock
Alex MacDowall caused an upset with pole position ahead of the favourite, Gordon Shedden, for Knockhill’s Dunlop British Touring Car Championship round.
Cumbrian teenager MacDowall achieved pole with a best lap of 53.001s in his Silverline Chevrolet Cruze – a new BTCC qualifying record around the spectacular Fife circuit.
But the 19-year-old from Carlisle urged caution, saying: “To beat Gordon on his home circuit is pretty special but I’m wary it’s only half the battle won. I was on pole at Snetterton and my gear lever broke ten yards after the start. Hopefully there’ll be none of that tomorrow…”
Scottish ace Shedden, who’d been fastest in the two earlier practice sessions, tried responding but had to make do with 53.073s and second place on tomorrow’s race one starting grid.
The Dalgety Bay racer’s attempts to better MacDowall’s time near the end were wrecked when his Honda Racing Team Honda Civic tripped over debutant Jeff Smith's Triple Eight Vauxhall Vectra that was rejoining the circuit after a spin.
Shedden said: “I had to take evasive accident and took off part of my car against a barrier but, although it’s very frustrating, second still means the front row of the grid. I’m going all out for wins tomorrow in front of my home crowd.”
Shedden, fourth in the standings, is at least the best placed of the title protagonists, although qualifying right behind him in third and fourth were his Honda team-mate Matt Neal, currently third in the table, and Silverline Chevrolet’s Jason Plato, the series leader. Plato impressively set his time despite his car carrying the maximum 45kgs of success ballast.
Airwaves BMW driver Steven Kane put on a late burst to leap to a best-ever fifth ahead of Paul O’Neill in his Sunshine.co.uk with Tech-Speed Motorsport Honda Integra. O’Neill was just one thousandth of a second clear of seventh-fastest Tom Chilton who was followed by Team Aon Ford team-mate Tom Onslow-Cole, currently second in the standings. So close were times that the top 13 drivers were covered by less than a second.
Ninth was WSR BMW driver Robert Collard who felt he would have been several places further up the grid had his best lap not been disallowed as he set it just as the red flags were shown. Ironically, this was to allow marshals to recover team-mate Andy Neate's car that had crashed at Duffus Dip half-way through the session.
Neate later admitted: "I hadn't got enough heat into the tyres, locked the left front and that was it - I was heading straight for the wall and thought it might hurt but although it was a heavy hit the damage is light. Thank goodness for foam barriers!"
A spirited tenth, despite suffering badly from a suspected bout of food poisoning, was Andrew Jordan in his Pirtek Racing Vauxhall Vectra.
Meanwhile, fellow Vectra driver David Pinkney - who, like Jordan, also uses BTCC organiser TOCA's NGTC turbo engine - felt his 13th position represented his Pinkney Motorsport team's best qualifying performance of the season so far.
Tom Boardman, using the NGTC motor for the first time in his Special Tuning UK SEAT Leon, was 15th, just ahead of Smith who ended his first BTCC qualifying session in 16th.
Completing the runners in 18th was Shaun Hollamby in his AmD Milltek Racing.com VW Golf - notably, for the first time this season, within two seconds of the pole time, this a clear indication of the on-going progress being made with car, the only one of its kind in the BTCC.
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