British Touring Car Championship title contender Tom Ingram has inherited pole position for the Silverstone round after qualifying topper Aron Taylor-Smith was excluded.
Taylor-Smith, his third-fastest team-mate Mikey Doble plus sixth-placed Dan Zelos all fell foul of the ride-height test, and will start race one from the back of the grid.
Aron Taylor-Smith appeared to have given BTCC minnow Power Maxed Racing its second successive Silverstone pole position.
The Midlands squad’s Vauxhall Astra topped qualifying in 2023 in the hands of rookie Mikey Doble – the only driver to break the Alliance Racing Ford monopoly of pole positions.
This time around Taylor-Smith mastered wet conditions, after rain fell before the second segment of qualifying, and it would have been the cheerful Dubliner’s first BTCC pole since Thruxton in 2015.
Taylor-Smith had set a good enough time in the dry Q1 to scrape through, despite ending the session in the pits because the gear lever had broken off in his hand.
The PMR crew worked hard to get it fixed, and Taylor-Smith’s first flying lap of Q2 was enough to put him in the Quick Six shootout.
