Championship contender Jason Plato took pole position in a frantic dry-to-wet qualifying session at Brands Hatch, with times tumbling throughout a fascinating 30 minutes.

Pole position changed hands eight times during the session, and would have surely done so on more occasions were it not for a red flag with less than three minutes to go, when Dave Newsham went off at Sheene.

Plato was on an even faster lap at that time, but in the end, his lap of 1.33.949 was good enough to top the times, making it a Triple Eight one-two ahead of Sam Tordoff, with Gordon Shedden in third.

Points leader Colin Turkington was fourth for West Surrey Racing, putting himself in an excellent position to wrap up the title on the final day of the season tomorrow.

The unpredictable conditions led to an equally unpredictable grid, with Ciceley Racing’s Adam Morgan an excellent fifth, Fabrizio Giovanardi a season’s best sixth, and James Cole taking a career-best seventh, also the best ever start for United Autosports.

Mat Jackson, Nick Foster and Newsham completed the top 10, with the midfield containing many a driver out of position. Team BMR’s Alain Menu had set several pole position laps earlier in the session, but ended up down in 13th, two places ahead of outgoing champion Andrew Jordan.

Matt Neal and Marc Hynes had also topped the times at various points of the session, but ended up 22nd and 25th respectively. Aron Smith was the lowest placed of the regular front-runners, down in 26th.

The stage is now set perfectly for the title battle on raceday, with Plato needing to cut the gap to Turkington by seven points in the first race to keep the championship alive.