BTCC: Sutton takes pole in qualifying at Thruxton

The first group started with Ash Sutton putting in some early laps topping the timesheets by over 2 seconds ahead of Restart Racing's Dan Lloyd and Chris Smiley.

He would maintain this spot for the rest of the session but Mikey Doble would and Gordon Shedden jump up to second and third at the end of the session while Rainford, Patterson and Dorlin would all make improvements seeing them through.

The second group would see the red flag thrown as Josh Cook crashed at Goodwood in the first half of the session. Once the green flag flew the times began to tumble.

At the end of the session, Tom Ingram would be fastest ahead of Dan Cammish and Jake Hill. The returning Senna Proctor would make a statement jumping to 4th while Rowbottom and Chilton would complete the top 6 advancing through.

The top twelve fastest drivers battled it out to make it to the final six as Sutton took the early lead from Ingram and Proctor in the first half of the session. Sutton's lead would not be relinquished as he would advance through fastest ahead of Doble, Ingram and Cammish while Proctor and Dorlin would make their way into the final part of qualifying.

While the fairytale return had been what Proctor had hoped for in his first qualifying session back, his hopes of pole would go up in smoke as his car would come to a stop, forcing a red flag and him to be out of qualifying meaning he'll start 6th for the first race tomorrow.

After the final laps were completed Sutton would take pole from Ingram by nearly 3 tenths of a second. Meanwhile, Cammish, Doble and Dorlin would complete the top 5 on the grid for race 1 tomorrow.