Adam Shepherd set out his stall as championship favourite as he kicked off the 2025 TCR UK season by claiming pole position at Donington Park with a time that puts him at the front of the grid for the opening race of the year.

In his Capture Motorsport run Cupra Leon Shepherd battled the JHR Racing Hyundai i10 of Callum Newsham for the top spot through the session, finishing with a 1m 08.728s time, which translated to a 0.166 gap over his nearest rival.

An early red flag while the field was still warming tyres stopped the session within the first couple of minutes, as the Lynk & Co of Championship Promoter Stewart Lines found itself coming to a halt as it belched smoke and steam out of the stationary machine at the top end of the track. With qualifying reduced to 16 minutes the cars returned to the circuit – with slick tyres on a track with damp patches and the field having the need to get heat back into tyres quickly to get up to speed for the truncated session.

Shepherd set the first meaningful time with a 1m10.965s lap around the 1.957 mile National layout of the track with Newsham moving into second and Steve Laidlaw going third fastest. Early track limits penalties were handed out to Newsham and Sam Laidlaw while Shepherd stayed the course to be the first under 1m10s with Newsham also improving.

The battle heated up at the front – even if the track surface didn’t as Laidlaw grabbed second briefly before Newsham answered with a faster lap, but they couldn’t match Shepherd who with nine minutes left on the clock dipped down to 1m08.764s on provisional pole.

Just behind the leaders Alistair Camp snatched fourth in his i30, which was pipped first by Brad Hutchison then Laidlaw. Camp retook fourth, then Hutchison and Laidlaw both took the slot, the trio battled with Laidlaw going down to sixth.

With five minutes left most of the lead cars were in pitlane for adjustments before having one last go for improvements. The top two of Shepherd and Newsham were set, with Camp improving after staying out to take third. Behind him Sam Laidlaw moved to fourth.

The times posted were:

1 Adam SHEPHERD CUPRA Leon Competicion  1:08.728

2 Callum NEWSHAM Hyundai i30 N TCR 1:08.894

3 Alistair CAMP Hyundai i30 N TCR 1:09.043

4 Sam LAIDLAW CUPRA Leon VZ TCR 1:09.103

5 Brad HUTCHISON CUPRA Leon Competicion TCR 1:09.457

6 Steve LAIDLAW CUPRA Leon VZ TCR 1:09.507

7  Finn LESLIE Hyundai i30 N TCR 1:09.777

8 William BEECH CUPRA Leon Competicion TCR 1:10.621

9 Harry BLOOR Hyundai I30 N TCR 1:10.700

10 Rod McGOVERN Hyundai i30 N TCR 1:10.874

11 Mark SMITH CUPRA Leon Competicion TCR 1:11.243

12 George JAXON Volkswagon Golf GTi TCR 1:12.773

13 Cedric BLOCH Audi RS3 LMS TCR DSG 1:13.152

14 Jeff ALDEN Audi RS3 LMS TCR SEQ 1:13.495

15 Gregory SAUNDERS CUPRA Leon Competicion TCR 1:19.880

16 Stewart LINES Lynk & Co 03 TCR No Time

George Jaxon topped Cedric Bloch and Jeff Alden for the Gen 1 class.

Shepherd set the quickest of the second fastest laps ahead of with Sam Laidlaw, Newsham, Camp, Steve Laidlaw, Finn Leslie, Brad Hutchison and Will Beech. This does not set the race three grid however, due to the possibilities of stewarding decisions from races one and two having an effect on the final line-up.