Turkington feeling 'more confident' with 3 Series after pole

Team BMW's Colin Turkington says he's feeling more confident with his new BMW 330i M Sport after clinching pole position for tomorrow's first British Touring Car Championship race at Donington Park.

The defending three-time champion took his 18th career BTCC pole by a handsome margin of almost 0.7s ahead of BTC Racing's Josh Cook after setting his best lap early in the 30-minute shootout.

A series of red flags and intermittent rainfall led to a chaotic 30-minute qualifying shootout, with even Turkington himself admitting to some degree of confusion due to the track conditions.

"I was conscious to push on those early laps. It felt like the tyres were coming in quite quickly," said Turkington.

"I pushed on that lap but it didn’t feel like a pole lap because there was a lot of understeer in the car. I was surprised when I saw the time. In hindsight, that was the best part of the session.

"I went out for the second run and we changed the car quite a bit. The track wasn’t massively different from the first outing but there was just so much understeer in the car.

"It was a very confusing situation. I was quite clear in my head what I needed to do after that first run to make the car better. So when I went out the car was a good step worse. I was completely confused.

"I was on the radio to the guys saying that there was loads more understeer. But the message came through that the other two in the team were the same so then I knew it was the track.

"I think the key was getting the lap done early."

Having previously admitted he wasn't totally happy with the balance of his new 3 Series at Brands Hatch, Turkington says he's now feeling more confident in the car after incorporating certain elements of his 2018 set-up.

"I’m feeling more confident in the car because I’ve got more things on there now that I would’ve had on last year," Turkington continued.

"At Brands I was basically running Andy’s [Jordan] set up. That was because we had one day testing before the start of the season.

"Kevin Berry, who was my engineer for the past six years, has obviously left the team so Andy’s engineer was in charge of rolling the car out so we sort all started how they would do.

"I think that’s what made it more difficult for me."