Jason Plato will start tomorrow’s first race of the day from pole position after his time of 1:23.745 was good enough to beat the rest of the field but it wasn’t without controversy.

Plato’s lap time, which was the quickest of the day, was marred somewhat by what happened during the last dash during the end of the session. Following a red flag with three and a half minutes to go there was a queue of drivers trying to make some space and give them a chance of taking pole but some drivers got a little close for comfort, notably arch-rivals Jason Plato and Matt Neal.

A collision between the two past-BTCC champions on the out-lap and then on the first flying lap caused damage to Matt Neal which meant that his lap was to be aborted, ending his chance of his third pole position of the season. The pair then nearly had a coming together out of the car as they squared up to each other following the end of the session resulting in the two experienced past BTCC champions having to be pulled away by team members.

Following the race the stewards reviewed the incident and handed £1000 fines to each driver as well as 3 points added to their competition license. Furthermore the pair have been given a six-place grid penalty which has been suspended till a later point in the 2011 season.

Meanwhile Paul O’Neill will be delighted with his best qualifying position of the season. The Widnes-based racer will start the first race of the day from on the front row of the grid making it an all Chevrolet front row.

Rob Austin managed to continue the pace which he showed in free practice two to take third ahead of championship contender, Matt Neal.

James Nash will start from 5th on the grid ahead of championship leader, Gordon Shedden, who held the provisional pole position for much of the session.

Jordan found some pace from somewhere on his way to taking 8th ahead of the Airwaves Racing Ford Focus of Mat Jackson.

Martin Byford managed to take his best qualifying position of the season with a time of 1:24.537 which was good enough to take 10th with an identical time as Nick Foster in 11th.

Both Aon Ford’s of Onslow-Cole and Chilton could only manage 13th and 14th after previously occupying the provisional pole position which shows just how close the times were today.

Debutant, Michael Caine in the Airwaves Ford Focus, will start his first BTCC race from 19th after recording a time which was just +1.1s slower than Plato.

Tomorrows first race of the day will start at 11:30 and will be live on ITV4 as well as online at www.itv.com/touringcars.

For a full classification of the qualifying session click here.

Photo Credit: Chris Gurton

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.