Sam Tordoff topped a foggy first practice British Touring Car Championship session at Rockingham on Saturday morning, beating Andrew Jordan by a mere 0.001s.
The 40-minute session was halted twice along the way, Tordoff’s lap of 1m23.357s at the halfway stage enough to top the morning action for the MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save BTCC Team which was ended early due to a coating of fog around the Corby venue.
Tordoff was run close in the session, Pirtek Racing‘s Jordan coming closest of all as the Honda man ended just 0.001s adrift of the MG man.
Third place went the way of the Ciceley Racing Mercedes A-Class of Adam Morgan who was just 0.076s adrift of Tordoff’s ultimate best, while championship leader Colin Turkington was next up after a late lap good enough for fourth in the WSR BMW.
The top five was rounded out by Honda’s Gordon Shedden, who enters the Rockingham round just 23 points behind Turkington with nine races to go.
Tom Ingram continued his fine form with sixth place in the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis, ahead of former double champion Fabrizio Giovanardi who ended seventh in the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST.
The top 10 was rounded out by fellow champions Matt Neal and Jason Plato, 10th place going to the second Airwaves Focus of Knockhill race winner, Mat Jackson.
Alain Menu slipped to 11th place having ran inside the top five early in proceedings, while BMR Racing team-mate Aron Smith finished two places further back in 13th.
Jordan’s team-mate Martin Depper meanwhile had his session ended earlier than planned as he slid into the gravel trap at Tarzan hairpin, while the session was brought to a halt two minutes early by worsening fog.
Second practice gets underway at 12.40, and you can keep up with all the action here at The Checkered Flag.
