The Northern Irishman repaid the work by West Surrey Racing in hurriedly prepping his previously pensioned-off 2019 title-winning BMW 330e M Sport by delivering a peach of a lap – a new Croft BTCC qualifying lap record – on a circuit where he has won 13 times in the series.
After two early red flags, current series runner-up Tom Ingram, allowed just 1.5 seconds of hybrid use on his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N, moved to the top of the times, but then he failed to improve on that best and eventually slid down to fourth.
