Ingram completes Saturday clean sweep with superb Croft pole position

Team Vertu Hyundai's Tom Ingram clinched pole position for Sunday's first British Touring Car Championship race at Croft in emphatic fashion after beating NAPA Racing's Dan Cammish by almost 0.3s.

Ingram already announced himself as the pacesetter after topping both practice sessions earlier in the day and Hyundai i30N driver translated that promising form into a 12th career BTCC pole position.

Having easily progressed through Q1 and Q2, Ingram produced a new qualifying lap record with a 1m20.522s lap, while others fell afoul of track limits, which proved to be a theme of the session.

Ingram shares the front row with Cammish in second, ahead of an impressive effort delivered by Power Maxed Racing's Mikey Doble, who set the third quickest time aboard his Vauxhall Astra.

Doble is joined on the second row of the grid by Tom Chilton, who, at one stage briefly sat on pole position, only for his lap to be deleted due to exceeding track limits.

Chilton's deleted lap was, in fact, marginally faster than his team mate Ingram's, but was quickly removed from the timing screens before recovering back to fourth thanks to a last-gasp effort.

Dan Rowbottom was another to see one of his hot-laps deleted and was forced to settle for fifth ahead of home-hero Dan Lloyd in sixth.

Toyota Gazzoo Racing UK's Aron Taylor-Smith was the quickest of the Q2 casualties in seventh, with Senna Proctor joining the Irishman on fourth row in eighth.

West Surrey Racing's Charles Rainford and Daryl DeLeon managed to salvage their slots on the fifth row of the grid in ninth and tenth, following what proved to be a difficult day for the BMW squad.

Elsewhere, championship leader Ash Sutton will have to defend his points lead from 11th on the grid after, he too, was caught out by track limits during the second part of qualifying.

Sutton initially set a time in the 1m20.8s during Q2, but that time was removed after the four-time champion was adjudged to have exceeded track limits.

Hill withdrawn from remainder of Croft weekend

Jake Hill’s title defence took another blow after being withdrawn from the remainder of the Croft event on medical grounds.

Hill was in the WSR garage during qualifying, but admitted to suffering with a disorientating viral infection when interviewed by ITV.

That means WSR will field three-cars for the rest of the weekend.

“It’s such a shame that this has happened today," said Hill.

"I didn’t feel well this morning during practice so went to the medical centre and unfortunately have been told I can’t race.

"It’s gutting for the team at WSR and Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport, but our focus now will be on getting better."

Colin Turkington briefly took part in FP2 as Hill's fitness was evaluated, but it was decided, with such little preparation, that the four-time champion will not substitute for the rest of the event.

WSR boss Dick Bennetts explained that the latest format of the three-part qualifying meant 'it would have been very tough' for series legend Turkington 'to show his hand'.

“Jake wasn't that well last night," said Bennetts.

"The TOCA doctors had a look, and he's got a viral infection. So, for Jake's sake, it's best he stands down and takes two, three or four days to hopefully get right for Knockhill.

“We took a team decision to withdraw the car because we chucked Colin (Turkington) in at the deep end, and he hasn't sat in the car since April.

"He did a fantastic job (in FP2), but it was very short notice, and with the ten-minute qualifying, it would be very tough to show his hand. So, it was it was a tough call, we thank Colin for his help, but the main thing is that Jake gets better for Knockhill.”