Tordoff 'very happy' with front-row qualifying run

AmD Tuning's Sam Tordoff makes the most of a 'smooth Saturday' to secure his second British Touring Car Championship front-row qualifying result of 2019 after setting the second fastest time at Oulton Park.

Tordoff has endured a dismal run of luck for the majority of the season so far but has given himself the perfect opportunity to claw back lost ground after missing out on pole by just 0.027s to reigning champion Colin Turkington.

With heightened track temperatures being the hot topic of the day, Tordoff admitted the conditions made it tricky to achieve any consistency with his Honda Civic Type R 'feeling on edge'.

"I’m very happy," Tordoff told Crash.net. "That’s the fastest I’ve ever gone around here. It was a good lap in difficult conditions. The heat is making it very hard.

"It’s making the car quite difficult to drive, a bit on edge. It’s quite hard to piece a lap together and be consistent. I was happy with the lap time I did.

"The car was great and the team did a good job. It’s the same for everyone, you’ve got to manage the heat.

"That’s been the biggest challenge today. The car straight out of the box was almost there. We’ve just had to manage this really high track temperature and try to make the car work around it."

With overtaking around Oulton Park notoriously difficult, Tordoff highlighted the importance of his favourable grid slot.

"We’ve been fast for a while, it’s just not been happening for us at the moment on qualifying day. For whatever reason, today has been a nice smooth Saturday, which we haven’t had for a while," Tordoff continued.

"It sets us up for tomorrow really importantly because it’s difficult to pass around here. Qualifying is hugely important."