BTCC: Toyota's Ingram snatches final BTCC pole of 2020

Toyota Gazoo Racing UK's Tom Ingram snatched the final British Touring Car Championship pole position of 2020 after narrowly beating Rory Butcher in qualifying at Brands Hatch.

With the conditions remaining much the same from the earlier practice session, the 30-minute qualifying shootout proved to be a chaotic affair with three red flag incidents dominating the landscape of the session.

Senna Proctor, Jake Hill and Carl Boardley all slipped off the circuit to bring out the red flags, but it was Boardley's final off which curtailed the final two-minute climax of the session.

Ash Sutton had led the vast majority of the 30-minute shootout, but the Laser Tools Racing was hurt most by the final two red flag periods and slipped to third behind Ingram and Rory Butcher.

Sutton produced a string of laps within the 54.9/55.0s bracket in the opening half of the session, but it wasn't enough to fight off late improvements from Ingram and Butcher.

Butcher initially stormed to the top of the times following Jake Hill's red flag incident, before Ingram went even faster to pip the Motorbase Performance runner by just 0.024s.

Fellow title contender Dan Cammish endured a rollercoaster qualifying with multiple offs, one of which resulting in the factory Honda Civic Type-R making brief contact with the tyre wall at Clearways.

However, the Team Dynamics driver still managed to emerge from the final qualifying session of the year in fourth ahead of Motorbase Performance's Ollie Jackson in fifth.

Despite bringing out a red flag and being unable to re-join the session, Hill held onto sixth, with Matt Neal following closely behind in seventh. Neal was another to fall foul of the tricky conditions and made multiple trips through the gravel.

Crucially, championship leader Colin Turkington will start Sunday's opening race from eighth on the grid. The final red flag proved costly after Team BMW driver elected to peel into the pits for fresh rubber to make one final attack on the timesheets.

Boardley's off ultimately denied Turkington the chance of making further inroads up the order.

Paul Rivett marked his second weekend in the series in magnificent style after qualifying his Audi S3 in ninth position ahead of BTC Racing's Josh Cook in tenth.