Jason Plato set the pace in the first practice session for the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship‘s crucial penultimate round of the season.
He lapped his MG KX Momentum Racing MG6 round the club version of the famous Silverstone circuit in 1m04.819s to head Mat Jackson in the Redstone Racing NGTC Ford Focus and Frank Wrathall’s DynoJet UK Toyota Avensis.
Plato’s performance, though not as dominant as Rockingham, suggests the MG may cope better with the lap-time-based boost equalisation system which threatens to throw the title fight wide open this weekend. His Triple Eight-run car was strong – though teammate Andy Neate was second from bottom – while the Yuasa cars struggled.
Pirtek’s Andrew Jordan was the first of the Civics in 7th just ahead of Matt Neal, while championship leader Gordon Shedden was 13th after completing the fewest laps of anybody except Dave Newsham.
Aron Smith backed up his teammate in fourth with a late flier in the S2000 Redstone Focus, ahead of the eBay Motors BMWs of Rob Collard and Tom Onslow-Cole.
Adam Morgan and Lea Wood were late movers up the timesheets to 10th and 12th respectively, the latter showing on his return the Vectras were looking strong around the short circuit – Chris James ran just outside the top ten but slipped back towards the end of the session while ES Racing teammate Newsham was bottom with a problem.]
Wood was the first of the returning drivers, with Liam Griffin (Redstone) 15th, Dan Welch‘s Proton 19th, and Chris Stockton (Thorney Insignia) 20th.