Tom Ingram was once again rapid out of the blocks as he topped the opening free practice session of the fourth Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship meeting from Oulton Park.
The opening 40 minutes of action from the BTCC boys on Saturday saw a strong pace set in Cheshire, initially displayed by Team BKR‘s Aron Smith, who topped the times with a 1m26.299s effort in his Volkswagen CC.
That time lasted until the final two minutes of first practice, when it was the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis of Ingram that showed its true colours with a time of 1m26.049s,
Six tenths adrift of the 2015 pole time, the Brands Hatch race winner ended first practice quickest of all by 0.245s from 2014 Oulton Park victor, Smith, reigning champion Gordon Shedden closest to the pair in third spot for Halfords Yuasa Racing.
Thruxton winner Andrew Jordan was next up for Motorbase Performance ahead of the best West Surrey Racing BMW 125i of Jack Goff, while fine pace in first practice rewarded Power Maxed Racing’s Hunter Abbott with sixth spot.
Second-best Honda Civic Type-R was that of Eurotech Racing‘s Daniel Lloyd, seventh ahead of the BMW of last year’s race three winner, Sam Tordoff‘.
Josh Cook ended ninth fastest in the Triple Eight Racing MG6 GT, while Colin Turkington upheld the flag for Team BMR and Subaru by rounding out the top 10.
The remaining Levorg GT machines – carrying upgraded components and engine developments for this meeting – ended 16th, 24th and 25th in the session, championship leaders Matt Neal and Rob Collard finishing 12th and 18th respectively for Honda and BMW.
