After making his debut at Snetterton, Dan Welch has been making huge progress in his Next Generation Touring Car Proton Gen-2 which was evident in qualifying which took place earlier today as he finished with his best grid position of the season.

The 29-year old from Hampshire will start the first race of the penultimate round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship from just outside the top ten in 11th place following his time of 1:32.717.

“Thats our best qualifying performance of the season but in a way it’s also one of the most disappointing as I know I could have gone a lot quicker,” said Welch after qualifying. “Towards the end of the session we were improving on every sector of each lap but we had a small suspension problem which put an end to my qualifying a few minutes from the end when I could have been up as high as eighth.”

Welch’s previous best qualifying position prior to today was 16th which came at Knockhill but he’ll be starting five places higher up for tomorrows first race of the day.

Welch went on to say, “We’re making huge changes to the car after every race but we seem to be heading in the right direction and hopefully by the time we get to Silverstone we can get a result out of it.”

The aim for tomorrow is to try and get a podium out of the three races. Obviously we still need to get our first top ten and we’re starting just outside so we have a good chance.

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.