BTCC: Rainford snatches pole at Knockhill

The BTCC season makes its way to Knockhill for the next round of the season as Charles Rainford starts off the weekend strong with pole position for race 1.

Group 1 in qualifying saw Daryl DeLeon top the timesheets early in the session before Rainford jumped ahead a few minutes later. The rest of the group would eventually reel them in. Ash Sutton and Senna Proctor would get within a tenth of Rainford's time before DeLeon would jump to the top of the times. No one could quite catch the BMW's leaving them to top the group with DeLeon leading Rainford. Dan Cammish, Proctor, Sutton and Sam Osborne would also make their way through into the the next round of qualifying.

Group 2 would see a similar story at the top early on with Aiden Moffat leading Jake Hill as the BMW's look to once more top the second group. Hill would then go to the top just before Moffat claimed it back shortly after as the BMW's fought heavily over the top. Eventually, the front wheel drive cars made their way into the fight as Árón Taylor-Smith and Dan Rowbottom would jump the BMW's before championship leader, Tom Ingram, just eclipses their times. Ingram's time would be enough to remain fastest at the end of the session ahead of Rowbottom, Moffat, Hill, Taylor-Smith and Chris Smiley who all advance to the second phase of qualifying.

The first half of the second part of qualifying would remain a battle between the four BMW's as they all take turns at being at the top. DeLeon was fastest at the half way point before going even faster the extend his lead but to only half a tenth quicker than Hill. Hill's second would be lost to Proctor who just sits himself behind DeLeon by 0.016 of a second. Hill would get even closer than Proctor to DeLeon as he went faster remaining only six thousandths off of the leading BMW. The top 5 into the final 2 minutes were separated by less than a tenth of a second and with yellow sectors being set across the board, the top 6 looked to be set to advance with DeLeon on top ahead of Hill, Proctor, Ingram, Rainford and Rowbottom. This left Cammish, Moffat, Taylor-Smith, Smiley, Sutton and Osborne to be eliminated and start in 7th-12th on the grid.

The final part of qualifying would start off how each of the other parts of qualifying started with the BMW's scraping at the front as DeLeon led Hill and Rainford in the opening minutes. Soon to snatch it away from DeLeon was Hill before Rainford went even quicker than his teammates to take the fastest time with just over half the session remaining. DeLeon would manage to jump back ahead of Hill but Rainford would remain out front while the front wheel drive Hyundai's of Proctor and Ingram as well as the Ford of Rowbottom started to set better lap times. But it wasn't enough as Rowbottom claims pole just ahead of DeLeon and Hill in a BMW 1-2-3. Rowbottom would manage to take 4th while Ingram and Proctor would have to settle for the third row of the grid.