Turkington describes pole lap as 'one of his best'
Subaru's Colin Turkington has described his remarkable third British Touring Car Championship pole position of 2016 as 'one of his best' after producing a miraculous charge in the unpredictable conditions at Brands Hatch.
Under the backdrop of a ferocious title fight, the final and most pivotal qualifying session of the year proved to be the most dramatic after Aron Smith's unfortunate roll wreaked havoc following the ensuing red flag period.
Around half the pack managed to set somewhat of a representative dry time prior to Smith's red flag incident but many - including Turkington - found themselves languishing further down as the rain posed the potential of throwing the session on its head.
Turkington was one of the first to venture out on the damp circuit with the slick tyre and set more laps than anyone else as the conditions slowly but surely improved.
It was a move which paid dividends as Turkington unleashed a scintillating sequence of laps, which narrowly kept the Ulsterman ahead of the chasing pack.
"It's one of my best I think," Turkington told Crash.net. "I was in a difficult position at the red flag. I was down in 18th on slicks and it was raining. It looked like I had no chance to improve my time. Once the track went live again I just tried to build some temperature and hope the track would come to me.
"It seemed a bit of a hopeless situation going out on slicks when it was raining but we had no other option. We had to build the temperature in the fronts, which you need in a RWD. Thankfully the track came to me.
"I've been in that situation before so I knew I had to be patient. Thankfully the times started to tumble. I was pushing as hard as could in those last few laps.
"I was out there by myself with no traffic but I couldn't judge where I was going. I couldn't judge if I was going too slow or too fast. I was just trying to maximise what I had. I've set myself up well for tomorrow."
As virtue of gaining a point for claiming pole position, Turkington, while qualifying far higher than the majority of the championship contenders, has narrowly closed the gap to Sam Tordoff in the points table.
However, the Subaru driver feels he's still 'too far back' to realistically fight for his third BTCC crown.
"It [the championship] hasn't changed too much for me. Obviously I get a point for pole position. The main guys in the championship are down a bit and it gives me a good chance to claw some points back, but I'm still not thinking of the championship," Turkington continued.
"36 points is still too big a gap. I'm just going to focus on having the best day tomorrow. We've got to score well early on to close the lead. I've got 27 kilos but I'm just going to focus on my own game."
