Two weeks after enduring a nightmare outing at Thruxton, Fifer Gordon Shedden will start the first of Sunday’s British Touring Car Championship triple-header at Croft near Darlington from the front row of the grid.
The 29-year-old from Dalgety Bay, who was twice forced to retire his Team Halfords Honda after it suffered a puncture when comfortably leading at Thruxton, left it late at Croft.
With just seconds remaining of the 30-minute session, the Scot lapped the 2.12-mile circuit in 1min 25.926secs to miss out on pole by just 0.101s. Seat’s Darren Turner starts from the No1 slot with his team-mate and former champ Jason Plato third.
“It was tight, but I knew we had the pace to get up on to the front row,” Shedden admitted afterwards. “Now we’re in the position to go for the win and get our championship challenge back on course.”
Championship leader Fabrizio Giovanardi could only manage 12th, six places behind his Vauxhall team-mate and closest rival in the title race, Tom Onslow-Cole. The top 13 drivers were covered by just 1.002s.
BLOB: Two weeks after dominating both races at Thruxton, Kirkaldy’s Jonathan Adam lines up on pole position for Sunday’s second counter of the Seat Cupra Championship at Croft.
The young Scot set a best lap of 1min 27.229secs to pip England’s Robert Lawson by 0.161s.
“We’ve got the car working exactly the way we want it to now,” Adam, the defending champion and who starts third in Sunday’s opening race, admitted. “The two wins a fortnight ago have given the team a major boost and now we can push for another double win tomorrow.”
JM