Colin Turkington admitted he was relieved to score a second-row start for the opening BTCC race of the weekend at Snetterton after almost being forced out of qualifying.
Turkington was amongst the drivers who went off on oil dropped by Nick Halstead in the early part of the session, with his BMW making sizeable contact with the tyre wall on the outside of Coram.
Despite that, Turkington was able to escape unscathed and would go on to set the third-best time to leave him well-placed to maintain a recent run of form that has seen him win six of the last twelve races at the longest circuit on the calendar.
“As I was spinning towards the tyre wall earlier in the session I thought that was game over,” he said. “It was a good recovery in a really difficult session because of the conditions – I really did not feel I knew the car that I was driving, so I just had to drive slightly beneath the limit because of the grip level and cement on the track. I felt I had to slightly undercook it and make sure I did a lap that there were no mistakes.
“It was tough conditions out there and we have had a surprisingly really strong headwind on the back straight and it had a massive effect on the car balance into turns one to three, giving us a lot of understeer, so we have been trying to work on the car with the wind.
“We put the same car on the track which got pole here last year and it was no good at all, so we have done well to turn it around with P3.”
