Championship leader Colin Turkington took a dominant pole position at Croft, beating Jason Plato by nearly 0.4 and shaving more than 1.2 seconds off his qualifying lap record from 2013.

The West Surrey Racing man jumped to the top of the times early on in the 30-minute session, before delivering the knockout blow in the final 10 minutes with a time of 1.23.246, all while carrying maximum success ballast.

Triple Eight’s Plato put together a mighty final run to wind up 0.370 behind Turkington, pipping the Honda trio of Gordon Shedden, Matt Neal and Andrew Jordan, but all struggled to get close to the dominant pace of the BMW 125i.

Turkington’s team-mate Rob Collard was sixth fastest ahead of Sam Tordoff, with Adam Morgan continuing his good form from practice in eighth. Alain Menu was next, and Rob Austin completed the top 10 in his repaired Audi A4, using a driver’s window borrowed from engineer James Weaver’s A4 estate.

Plato had a spin at Clervaux immediately after setting his best lap, while Jordan also found himself in the wars, damaging his left front corner after clipping the tyres at the chicane.

It was a disappointing session for a number of drivers, not least the Motorbase Performance pair of Mat Jackson and Fabrizio Giovanardi, who could do no better than 15th and 18th. United Autosports’ Glynn Geddie was down in 20th after finishing third in second practice, his progress halted by a black flag for exceeding track limits.

Aron Smith and Ollie Jackson also lost times for exceeding track limits, while AmD Tuning’s Dave Newsham was 16th having previously failed a ride height test and having all his times deleted.

For the third time today, proceedings were interrupted by a red flag, which came with 12 minutes to go when a tyre barrier became dislodged and had to be replaced by the marshals.

Only 30 cars qualified, as BTC Racing’s Chris Stockton was forced to withdraw from the meeting before the session, due to engine issues with his BTC Racing Chevrolet Cruze.