Turkington scores heroic Croft pole position after nasty Oulton Park shunt

Less than two weeks after their colossal Oulton Park shunt, Colin Turkington and Dan Lloyd produced heroic performances to qualify first and third in BTCC qualifying at Croft.

Simon Evans

25 Jun 2022

Colin Turkington (GBR) - Team BMW BMW 330e M

Team BMW's Colin Turkington bounced back from his nasty Oulton Park shunt to score a heroic pole position after setting the fastest time in British Touring Car Championship qualifying at Croft.

The four-time champion, alongside home favourite Dan Lloyd, was involved in a colossal crash less than two-weeks ago at the previous Oulton Park round, where both drivers suffered minor injuries as a result.

Tom Ingram (GBR) - Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com Hyundai i30N, Daniel Lloyd (GBR) - Bristol Street — Tom Ingram (GBR) - Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com…

However, Turkington defied that setback after the Team BMW driver charged to the top-spot during the latter stages of the 30-minute shootout.

Incredibly, at the point of which Turkington shot to the top of the timesheets, it was Dan Lloyd who occupied provisional pole.

Turkington, who is the behind the wheel of his 2019 championship winning 001 BMW 3 Series chassis, produced a 1.21.468s, which dethroned Lloyd by 0.068s.

Unlike Turkington, Lloyd is using the same chassis that was involved in the heavy Oulton Park shunt after his EXCELR8 Motorsport squad were able to rebuild his damaged Hyundai i30N challenger.

Despite sitting on provisional pole after an equally as impressive effort, Lloyd eventually slipped down to third behind Team Dynamics Honda's Dan Rowbottom, who produced a time just 0.027s shy of Turkington's pole time.

A late red-flag with just 46 seconds left on the clock, prevented anyone from spoiling Turkington's and West Surrey Racing's party, following a herculean effort to prepare their 2019 championship winning chassis.

Fellow EXCELR8 Motorsport driver Tom Ingram joins Rowbottom on the second row in fourth, while Gordon Shedden was fifth fastest in the sister Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R.

Jake Hill was sixth fastest for the ROKiT MB Motorsport BMW squad, ahead of defending three-time champion Ash Sutton in seventh.

Series veteran Tom Chilton enjoyed his strongest qualifying of the season so far after the Hyundai driver set the eighth fastest time ahead of George Gamble and Aiden Moffat, who both rounded out the top-ten order in ninth and tenth.

Elsewhere, current championship leader Josh Cook endured a disastrous qualifying. The BTC Racing Honda driver could only manage a time good enough for 20th fastest, two positions behind his two-time champion team mate Jason Plato in 18th.