Gordon Shedden again topped the times in the second Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship practice session from Knockhill.
Spots of rain threatened during the session as the conditions become much cooler in the afternoon, the session topped by Eurotech Racing‘s Jeff Smith for much of the 40 minutes.
20 minutes passed until Smith’s exuberance soon got the better of him, setting the fastest time of 52.051s before he spun his Civic into the gravel, red flags waved as a result.
The Honda man remained at the top of the times as green flags waved to signal the resumption of second practice, West Surrey Racing launching their attack after a quiet first practice. Andy Priaulx staked his claim for the top spot in his early laps, but was soon black flagged from the session early for disrespecting track limits too often.
Smith’s time at the top was soon short lived, as local man Shedden became the first driver to dip into the 51s barrier on Saturday and top the times with seven minutes remaining – 0.153s ahead of Smith’s older Civic Type-R model.
“It was pretty damn good!” said Smith after second practice. “I think there’s more in there too.”
Sam Tordoff meanwhile – WSR’s best-placed man in the Drivers’ Championship hunt – set the BMW outfit’s best effort of second practice in third, just 0.270s off the pace of Shedden’s Honda.
Fourth was Mat Jackson‘s Motorbase Performance Ford Focus, Priaulx next up ahead of Andrew Jordan and WSR team-mate Rob Collard, a four-time Knockhill BTCC race winner.
Adam Morgan was next for Mercedes, demoting Jason Plato‘s Team BMR Volkswagen to ninth ahead of Tom Ingram (Toyota) rounding out the top 10.
Rob Austin was also victim to the black flag brandishing, the top 22 cars again separated by less than a second.
Qualifying gets underway at 15:05, and you can keep up with the action here at www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk, or via Twitter at @tcfBTCC.