Fourth, fifth and ninth for VX Racing

In a closely fought qualifying session, where the top 13 drivers were seperated by less than a second, VX Racing took fourth, fifth and ninth positions for the first of tomorrow’s three races. Andrew Jordan was the top Vauxhall driver, followed by Fabrizio Giovanardi and Matt Neal who had his top time taken away from him.

In the first two practice sessions of the day VX Racing were particularly strong, with all three drivers inside the top 5 in both sessions. In a hot and hazy first session Neal was the fastest Vauxhall driver, even though he was carrying the most success ballast, and it would remain that way in the second session as the team concentrated on longer fuel runs.

Despite qualifying strongly, Jordan wasn’t totally happy with his lap believing that pole position was possible. In the earlier practice sessions, which had seen hotter weather than the cooler, cloudier qualifying session, Jordan had lapped fifth fastest and was obviously hoping to benefit from the more favorable conditions during qualifying.

“It wasn’t pole, which I thought was in my sights today, so I’m a bit disappointed,” said 20-year-old Jordan. “I came here very determined to bag the top spot, so it is a bit frustrating. However, the car’s good and I’m confident we can have some good races. I’m alongside Fabrizio for the start, so I’ll be pushing to beat him into the first corner. It’s good to be the quickest VX Racing driver – that’s a bonus.”

Reigning champion Giovanardi said of his session: “We’ll have to look at the data and try and analyse it, as it seemed we were quicker on a damp track than later when it dried out. We’re not too far off the front runners and I’m expecting it to be very close racing tomorrow, so we should be able to get in the thick of it.”

Matt Neal had set an indentical lap time to James Thompson - good enough for fourth position (as Thompson had set the time first). However the track stewards later deemed that Neal had gained an unfair advantage by having all four wheels off the circuit at the Esses and disallowed his time, meaning his next best lap was only good enough for ninth on the grid.

“It was a tough qualifying and I think it’ll be a very busy day for everyone tomorrow, as this circuit is notorious for being the battle ground of very exciting, close racing,” said Neal. ” Although it was getting cooler this afternoon we were still hoping for rain, as we know we’re strong in wet conditions, but it didn’t happen.”