Chris Smiley has taken his third pole position of the 2022 TCR UK Championship, putting him in the prime seat for race one later today, as Scott Sumpton starred during the session.
Smiley put the Restart Racing Honda Civic Type R FK7 TCR on top of the timesheets early on to stake his claim, as he looks to gain lost ground in the championship. The Oulton Park winner traded times with both Bruce Winfield and Adam Shepherd.
Title rival Max Hart was quick enough in the early stages to set the sixth quickest time, however he soon retired from the session with a broken left rear hub bracket. The JamSport Racing driver had a shocking time at Oulton Park and is looking to score once more at the Wiltshire circuit.
There were also some tyre issues as Jessica Hawkins in the Area Motorsport with FastR CUPRA TCR and Lewis Kent in the Essex and Kent Hyundai Veloster N TCR and Adam Shepherd in his Area Motorsport run Hyundai i30 N TCR suffered left front punctures.
Smiley took pole position for the first race of the day at Castle Combe with a time of 1:06.331 ahead of Shepherd who set the second quickest time, just under two tenths of a second behind.
Bruce Winfield lines up in third place ahead of Bradley Kent, who sat out the last minutes of Qualifying with a technical issue.
Bradley Hutchison will start from fifth place on row three, with Scott Sumpton lining up in sixth place, his best qualifying of the season so far and also gaining one point from the session as the top six score points in Qualifying.
Championship leader Isaac Smith will start from seventh place in the Race Car Consultants Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR ahead of round nine winner Jamie Tonks whilst Alex Ley and Max Hart complete the top ten on the grid.
Jac Constable will start from eleventh place in the Power Maxed Racing CUPRA TCR, ahead of Hawkins with Callum Newsham in 13th position ahead of 2021 winner Darelle Wilson in the DW Racing Vauxhall Astra TCR.
Lewis Kent (Hyundai), Goodyear Diamond Trophy leader Andy Wilmot (Hyundai), Matthew Wilson (CUPRA), Ant Whorton-Eales (Subaru), Steve Gales (Volkswagen) and Neil Trotter (CUPRA) complete the grid.
Race One will get underway at 13.00 where it will be live streamed on the TCR UK YouTube channel.
