Triple Eight’s Sam Tordoff made it back-to-back pole positions with a dominant performance at Rockingham, with championship leader Colin Turkington staging a late dash to join him on the front row.

Tordoff’s best time of 1.22.471 was 0.484 faster than West Surrey Racing’s Turkington, who recovered from a spin at Chapman earlier in the session to set his best time in the final minutes, and further bolster his title hopes.

Tordoff’s team-mate Jason Plato was almost half a second slower in third, with fellow title protagonist Gordon Shedden fourth for Honda Racing Team, and reigning champion Andrew Jordan fifth.

Ciceley Racing’s Adam Morgan was sixth, ahead of the equally impressive Marc Hynes, who recorded his best qualifying performance in the BTCC to date in seventh. Alain Menu, Matt Neal and Mat Jackson rounded out the top 10.

Further down the order, it was another disappointing session for Rob Collard, who could do no better than 16th in his BMW 125i, two weeks on from taking his first win of the season at Knockhill.

The technical Rockingham track caught out a large number of drivers during the 30-minute session, with Hunter Abbott the first to go for a spin at Yentwood in the opening minutes.

Simon Belcher followed suit, before Jack Clarke went off at Deene, and both Chris Stockton and Turkington spun at Chapman.

And Ollie Jackson’s season of woe continued when he parked his smoking Welch Motorsport Proton Gen-2 by the side of the track on School Straight.

Warren Scott and Dan Welch also had minor offs before Glynn Geddie was another victim of mechanical issues, parking his United Autosports Toyota Avensis just before Yentwood.

His car was left at the side of the track for the remainder of the session, despite appearing to be in a dangerous position.