Rainford takes maiden BTCC pole

The West Surrey Racing BMWs are back on form in the British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill, with Charles Rainford leading a 1-2-3 for the squad in qualifying.

The Scottish venue always suits the BMW 330i M Sport, with its tight uphill hairpin highlighting the rear-wheel-drive traction as the cars head onto the long start-finish straight. And a 15kg weight break before the last round at Croft has also helped.

Of the four WSR BMWs, only that of reigning champion Jake Hill was compromised on usage of TOCA Turbo Boost, with his championship position of seventh allowing him 13 seconds of the maximum 15 enjoyed by his team-mates.

It was an impressive Daryl DeLeon who led the way in both Q1 and Q2, but the amiable Anglo-Filipino appeared to overdrive slightly in the Goodyear Quick Six Shootout, and it was Rainford who emerged on top by a mere 0.013 seconds.

“It’s something that I dream of,” said the ever-enthusiastic Rainford, the rookie on just his seventh BTCC race weekend.

“I was suffering with rear locking in free practice. I thought the car was a bit slow with the changes Dan [Millard, Rainford’s engineer] decided we wanted to make after FP2. And I got in my head all about it and said, ‘It’s slower’, and then realised it wasn’t – it’s better!

“I just need to trust myself more – that will come with time and experience.”

To put the icing on the cake, this was Rainford’s first pole position since he moved out of the historic racing ranks into the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, in which he competed for four seasons before joining the BTCC.

For once, the front-wheel-drive hordes were never in contention, aside from championship leader Tom Ingram topping his Q1 session – albeit with a time slower than DeLeon’s in the other group.

Ingram was pipped to the honour of fastest FWD runner by Dan Rowbottom, the bearded Midlander continuing his strong season on just five seconds of TTB at the wheel of his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST.

But then Rowbottom failed the post-qualifying weight check, banishing him to the back of the grid and promoting Ingram back up to fourth. With just one second of TTB, his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback had set two laps quicker than Rowbottom’s, only to have them deleted for exceeding track limits.

Daniel Rowbottom, NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST

Photo by: JEP

Senna Proctor, Ingram’s team-mate in the Excelr8 squad, will line up fifth, with all of his Q3 hot laps scrubbed for track-limits offences.

Unluckiest not to progress to Q3 was Dan Cammish, who finished the Q2 phase just 0.060s adrift of Alliance Ford team-mate Rowbottom to take sixth on the grid on seven seconds of TTB.

Next up were the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Aron Taylor-Smith, Chris Smiley’s Restart Racing Hyundai, and Aiden Moffat in the remaining WSR BMW, who was the only one of the three Scots to progress to Q2 on their local circuit.

Current championship runner-up Ash Sutton, on just three seconds of TTB, ended up 10th, and had a massive moment at the chicane on his final lap where the car got onto two wheels, and only by steering straight into the gravel trap did he avoid rolling.