Jason Plato set a blistering pace in second practice at Snetterton, over a second ahead of his rivals as the sun came out in Norfolk for the British Touring Car Championship’s second action of Saturday afternoon.
The double BTCC champion upped the pace in second practice as the morning’s wet weather began to dry out for the 40-minute free practice two, Plato setting a personal best that dipped under the qualifying lap record of 2013.
The session began without reigning champion Andrew Jordan however, the Pirtek Racing man sent to hospital for precautionary check-ups ahead of qualifying after his FP1 shunt at Riches.
11-time Snetterton winner Plato moved to the top of the times early in proceedings, where he was joined by his Triple Eight team-mate Sam Tordoff in the second MG6.
Plato continued to lower his times as the sun emerged in Norfolk during second practice, improving to an ultimate effort of 1m56.197s that proved unbeatable.
The gap back to second-placed Colin Turkington was an alarming 1.176s, the West Surrey Racing BMW driver best of the tightly-bunched rest ahead of of the Mercedes A-Class of Adam Morgan.
Mat Jackson was next up as he again impressed for the Motorbase Performance squad in the Ford Focus ST, Jack Goff once more showing strong pace in his new BMR Racing Volkswagen CC machine by rounding out the top five.
Goff steadily improved his pace, as did WSR’s Rob Collard who moved up to sixth place by the conclusion of practice, the top 10 rounded out by Tordoff, Tom Ingram, Matt Neal and first practice pace-setter, Alain Menu.
Qualifying gets underway at 15:20 later this afternoon, and you can follow all the action with us at The Checkered Flag and on Twitter via @tcfBTCC.
