Jason Plato once again topped the times in the second Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship free practice session from Donington Park, closing in on his own 2014 qualifying lap record.
The double champion lowered his time from first practice to a 1m09.553s effort in the second session of the day at the Leicester circuit, leading a BMR Racing 1-2 for much of the session ahead of reigning champion, Colin Turkington.
The ultimate best by Plato was a mere 0.093s off the pace of his lap record at the same circuit 12 months ago, although Gordon Shedden separated the Volkswagen pair in the final minute of the session by going second, 0.431s behind Plato.
Turkington slipped to fourth place in the second CC, having also fell behind the Triple Eight MG6 GT of Andrew Jordan after the 2013 BTCC champion put on a late burst.
Aron Smith rounded out the top five in another BMR Volkswagen, ahead of top rookie Mike Bushell who shone with a late charge to sixth place in the AmD Tuning Ford Focus.
Tom Ingram was next up to continue Speedworks Motorsport‘s impressive Saturday showing, pipping the Mercedes A-Class of Aiden Moffat which recovered from an off at the final chicane.
The young Scot finished ahead of joint championship leaders, Matt Neal and Jack Goff, the latter’s MG suffering no side effects from his clash with the absent Hunter Abbott earlier in the morning.
Highest-placed West Surrey Racing BMW was that of Sam Tordoff in 14th place, 20th being the finishing position of Brands Hatch pole man, Andy Priaulx.
The session was brought briefly to a halt by Stewart Lines, who stopped out on track at Redgate with further issues to his Toyota Avensis. Dan Welch did make it out on the track, while Infiniti completed a combined 33 tours of the circuit between Richard Hawken and Derek Palmer Jr.
Qualifying gets underway at 15:35, and you can keep up with the action here at www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk, or via Twitter at @tcfBTCC.
