Gordon Shedden will start tomorrow’s first race of the day in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship from pole position after setting the fastest lap during the qualifying session.

Shedden’s time of 1:17.004 was enough to secure his first pole position of the season beating Andrew Jordan by a mere 0.062 of a second. The Scotsman, who only set 10 laps during the 30 minute session, made it a 100% record for Honda Racing in terms of pole positions this season.

Reflecting on his lap, Shedden said to BTCC Crazy, “It’s going to be a different story tomorrow in the race. We needed every ounce of everything we’ve got as we’ve been compromised so much in a straight line. We’ve been saved around here by the handling of the car.”

“We’ve been hit hard by the turbo restriction, especially when you look at the Vauxhall that’s carrying 27kgs of ballast and is capable of doing the same lap times as us and we’re a works Honda team, with zero ballast. We should be capable of beating a four-year-old Vectra by more than 0.062 seconds.”

Despite feeling hard done by Shedden will be going into tomorrow’s race with great confidence. “We’ve done race runs in free practice one and two and the car’s good so hopefully were in the mix come the last lap tomorrow when the chequered flag falls.”

Matt Neal will have to settle with starting the first race of the day from the second row ahead of the Ford Focus of Tom Chilton.

Jason Plato was, once again, the fastest of the normally aspirated cars but could only manage a time which was 0.962s off the pace of the turbo powered Honda Civic of Shedden.

Perhaps the performance of the day has to go to Tom Onslow-Cole who followed up the teams best performance at Donington Park with the teams best qualifying position in the BTCC. Onslow-Cole will start from 6th on the grid alongside the Chevrolet Cruze of the 2010 Champion, Jason Plato. It wasn’t all plain sailing for the 23-year old who had to pull over through the complex and missing out on the final 10 minutes of the session.

Jeff Smith left it late to set his time which was good enough for 7th on the grid in the Pirtek Racing Vauxhall Vectra. Smith came over the line on his final lap of the session with a time of 1:18.249 to jump ahead of Jackson, Boardman and Nash who round out the top 10.

Neate was up as high as 7th but a track infringement when he cut the Club Chicane meant that his time was scrubbed leaving him down in 15th.

Wrathall is the best of the two NGTC-spec cars starting in 19th ahead of Rob Austin in 20th.

You can view the full qualifying results here.

Photo Credit: Steve Kilvington

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.