Two time British Touring Car Champion, Jason Plato, took his 32nd pole position of his career on the Snetterton 300 layout with a lap time of 1:58.691 in what was a frantic qualifying session in round six of the championship.

After a delayed start it was Gordon Shedden in the Honda Racing Honda Civic that took the early initiative and set the fastest time which stood for almost 20 minutes of the session ahead of 2010 pole-sitter, Alex MacDowall, but it was Jason Plato who had the last throw of the dice and took pole position by just 0.025 seconds ahead of the Scotsman with just 5 minutes remaining in a day which has been dominated by the two Silverline Chevrolet’s.

Plato’s lap prompted Shedden to go out for a further run after previously sitting on his one fast lap which was set early on in the session but couldn’t improve.

Alex MacDowall’s qualifying session was brought to an abrupt end when his car caught fire in the pit lane. Early reports are that a fuel leak caught fire which ended with the engine bay being doused with water to extinguish the fire. MacDowall, however, will start the first race of the day from 3rd on the grid with his time of 1:58.908.

Championship leader, Matt Neal, could only manage 4th fastest and will start on the second row of the grid in his fully ballasted Honda Civic followed by the Vauxhall Vectra of James Nash and Ford Focus of Tom Chilton.

One of the performances of the day has to be that of Frank Wrathall. The Lancastrian set the three fastest speed trap times on his way to setting the 7th fastest time of the day beating his previous best by ten places and only 0.393s off the pace set by Plato.

Dave Newsham, Paul O’Neill and Tom Onslow-Cole rounded out the top ten.

Debutants, Martin Byford and Dan Welch will start tomorrows race from 19th and 20th respectively whilst Tom Boardman and Chris James will start from the back after failing to set a lap time.

To view the full qualifying lap times click here.

Photo Credit: Pete Mainey (www.psmmotorsportimages.co.uk)

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.