Bradley Burns marked his TCR UK debut weekend with pole position at Donington Park as the Area Motorsport Audi RS3 racer trumped the TCR UK regulars with a last gasp1m33.098s lap to claim the top spot for the opening Sunday race.

The former TCR Germany racer was on the pace all through the session as he traded fastest laps with Adam Shepherd (Capture Motorsport Cupra Leon) and Sam Laidlaw (Area Motorsport Cupra Leon VZ.)

Laidlaw laid down the early marker one the cars were up to speed with after their initial tyre rotation with two laps in the 1m34s bracket before Burns logged the first tour in the 1m33s range. Laidlaw fired back bringing the pace down to 1m33.485s with Burns topping that just 13 seconds later.

Championship leader Shepherd, who was one of the latter drivers to lay down a first meaningful time brought the times down further with a 1m33.256s lap to grab top spot. The time stood for almost 10 minutes and with a small amount of time left in the session Shepherd called it quits, with the time eventually being good enough for second.

Burns took the pole in the last minute of qualifying to put himself in the mix for round five on Sunday with a 0.158s advantage over Shepherd.

Brad Hutchison (MPH Cupra Leon) put in his best lap in the middle of the session to grab third, pushing Sam Laidlaw into fourth. Round three winner Callum Newsham (JHR Hyundai i30) didn’t quite carry over pace from the Donington round two weeks back while grabbing fifth ahead of the Area Leon VZ of Steve Laidlaw.

Alistair Camp (Hyundai) Ryan Bensley (Lynk & Co) Finn Leslie (Hyundai) and Luke Sargeant (Audi) rounded out the top 10.