West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington dominated qualifying at Knockhill, setting three laps good enough for pole, but his eight-place grid penalty from Snetterton means Triple Eight’s Sam Tordoff inherits top spot.

Turkington was the 13th driver to top the frenetic 30-minute session, and then set back-to-back fastest laps in the final minutes to extend his gap to Tordoff to 0.464 seconds.

But he will start the first of tomorrow’s three races from the tail end of the top 10 after his contact with Matt Neal last time out, meaning Tordoff will share the front row with Rob Austin, who put in a late dash in his Audi A4 to move up the order.

On the corrected grid, Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan will be third ahead of the Honda Racing Team pair of Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal, with Jason Plato sixth and Mat Jackson seventh.

Turkington’s team-mate Rob Collard would have been eighth, but will start from the back following his penalty from Snetterton, meaning Nick Foster moves up to his spot. Glynn Geddie will complete the top 10, with the best qualifying of his maiden BTCC season.

Sixteen cars qualified within a second, down to AmD Tuning’s Dave Newsham, while there were disappointing showings for Fabrizio Giovanardi in 19th, and the Team BMR trio of Alain Menu, Aron Smith and Jack Goff in 15th, 17th and 20th respectively.

In a frenetic first 10 minutes on a drying track, the top time changed no fewer than 11 times, before Jordan set the early benchmark of 52.555.

A red flag followed when Chris Stockton went off on the exit of Leslie’s and beached his Chevrolet Cruze in the gravel trap, allowing the field to take stock.

After Stockton had been recovered, the session was equally as hectic, with offs for Tordoff, Hunter Abbott, Lea Wood and Robb Holland among others. Warren Scott and Abbott both had harmless spins at Scotsman early on in the session.

The times listed below are before the application of the penalties for Turkington and Collard.