Dan Cammish grabbed the first pole position of the BTCC season at Donington with a last gasp dash after having a handful of qualifying laps blanked for exceeding track limits.

The NAPA Racing UK driver pipped teammate Ash Sutton to the top spot in a frantic last few minutes of the final session, after a red flag caused by Tom Chilton stopping on track with electrical problems reduced the final rush to being a five-minute session.

Cammish had fallen foul of track limits violations earlier in the day with an FP2 black flag along with a host of other drivers, which forced TOCA to reinstate the much-hated tyre stacks at Redgate and entry and exit of the chicane.

Tom Ingram placed third after topping both practice sessions, with Dan Rowbottom in a third NAPA Focus claiming fourth. Toyota racer Ronan Pearson – who’d received three black flags in the opening sessions took fifth position ahead of Chilton. The Hyundai racer had been fast all morning and sailed through Q1 and Q2, only to be thwarted from jumping into the top five thanks to an electrical problem causing a misfire.

The Q2 session saw Josh Cook take seventh after catching Árón Taylor-Smith at the chicane, halting a lap that might have allowed him to squeeze into the final part. Jake Hill kicked off his championship defence with eighth. Despite being happy with the handling of the car the BMW racer could not match his rivals. His team, WSR, are already lobbying for a boost in performance from TOCA with the engine freeze now in place. Taylor-Smith pushed his Toyota into ninth with former teammate Mikey Doble continuing to punch upwards in the sole Vauxhall Astra as he placed 10^th. Dan Lloyd in the first Restart Hyundai, and Charles Rainford in a WSR BMW. completed the phase two positions.

The big names to fall at the first hurdle included Gordon Shedden – the three-time champion could only manage 13^th. Daryl DeLeon and Aiden Moffat – after a troubled morning practice could only line up in 18^th and 20^th. Adam Morgan starts 21^st after having laps stripped for track limits after being towards the front of the field and is four places behind Michael Crees in the fourth Excelr8 Hyundai who impressed with a 17^th place.

The pre-season hype around Un-Limited Racing was tempered with a reality check as the team saw its three drivers take up the last three slots on the grid with Max Hall, Dexter Patterson (after a tech problem) and Nic Hamilton pull up the rear gunner slots.

01	Dan Cammish		Ford	1:07.659
02	Ashley Sutton		Ford	1:07.670
03	Tom Ingram		Hyundai	1:07.690
04	Dan Rowbottom		Ford	1:08.052
05	Ronan Pearson		Toyota	1:08.799
06	Tom Chilton		Hyundai	1:08.133
07	Josh Cook		Honda	1:08.337
08	Jake Hill		BMW	1:08.346
09	Aron Taylor-Smith		Toyota	1:08.352
10	Mikey Doble		Vauxhall	1:08.352