SEAT man happy to secure first diesel pole at Croft.

Darren Turner admitted he was pleasantly surprised to secure the first diesel pole position in the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Croft.

The SEAT Sport UK driver survived a trip through the gravel at Clervaux to secure top spot during the session with a lap of 1min 25.825secs although there was a brief scare when his Leon TDi failed the ride height test and Turner has his times disallowed.

However, it soon became apparent that the failure had been due to a stone becoming lodged in the splitter of the car which in turn had pushed the splitter lower to the ground and the times were reinstated. Unfortunately the damage to the splitter meant that Turner was then sidelined for the remainder of the session although no-one was able to beat his time.

"I had an off at turn one and there a stone split the splitter on the front of the car and became wedged in it," he told Crash.net. "It meant that we failed the ride height but the technical team said they could see that we had failed it because of the damage as when the stone was removed, the splitter was fine. Unfortunately we didn't have time to change the splitter, so we had to sit it out and wait and see what happened.

"I'm happy with pole and it's a nice surprise that I didn't expect. I'm not a huge fan of Croft and it is a very challenging circuit. But pole is great and JP did a good lap with the ballast onboard, so it looks good for us for the race."

Team-mate Jason Plato looked set to join Turner on the front row despite carrying extra ballast on his car, but was knocked back to row two at the death by Gordon Shedden - leaving him to start third in the second Leon TDi.

While happy to qualify third, the 2001 champion admitted it could have been more if he had got the most of his fastest laps.

"I'm pleased but also a little annoyed as I feel I didn't really get into a rhythm with the car and I was on the back foot a little going into qualifying," he said. "I didn't get that last little bit out of the car and my lap was a bit scrappy. I feel there was more then and I could have been as quick as Darren - and could have had pole. However it is good with the weight onboard as we know how much that is worth."

The big plus for Plato is that title rival Fabrizio Giovanardi could only manage the twelfth quickest time although he admitted that anything could still happy on race day.

"For whatever reason, Fabrizio struggled but he'll be on the pace tomorrow," he said. "I think the BMW will have good race pace and Colin has a chance to lead into turn one from the second row and Gordon Shedden is proving to be a real threat in the Honda and there was a good battle with him in qualifying. It's set up to be some really competitive racing tomorrow."