Hill was one of a raft of late improvements in the opening session, which took place amid light drizzle, and steered his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport around the Indy Circuit 0.097 seconds quicker than the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST of three-time champion Ash Sutton.

Apart from a few people bedding in wet-weather rubber, the competitors ran on slick tyres throughout, and the majority took the opportunity to put a heat cycle through the soft-compound Goodyear as option tyres return to the series after a season away this weekend.

Those who did run the soft tyres did so while teetering around early on while the track was at its slippiest, and Hill’s time on the regular mediums, once conditions got as good as they ever were, was over a second off team-mate Colin Turkington’s qualifying lap record.

Points leader Dan Cammish was third in this session in his Motorbase Ford ahead of reigning champion Tom Ingram with his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N and Turkington.

But it was the second session, which took place in completely wet conditions, that will most likely be more relevant to the afternoon qualifying session, with the forecast quite miserable for the rest of Coronation day.

Butcher had run among the leading runners for much of the opening session, but pitted his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport for a set-up change and missed the window when the quickest times were set.

Jake Hill, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

In the second period, the Scot shot out of the blocks, setting the quickest time very early on and finishing a mere 0.005s clear of Sutton.

The contrasting styles of the drivers were remarkable bearing in mind the similarities of their times, with Butcher steering well clear of the kerbs through the tricky Surtees/McLaren S-bend and Sutton smothering them more than anyone else – and rescuing an enormous tankslapper on the grass early in the session.

“It’s quite encouraging I think,” said Butcher, who is attempting to bounce back from a disappointing opening round at Donington Park.

“We were able to replicate that lap on a couple of runs and then the circuit dropped away – it was a bit weird really, but we made the most of it while it was good.”

Bobby Thompson was another kerb-attacker on his way to third spot in his Team Hard Cupra Leon, and the hard-trying reigning Jack Sears Trophy champion set the theoretical best lap of the session based on fastest splits.

Also within 0.1s of Butcher’s best were fourth-placed Hill and the second Speedworks Toyota of Ricky Collard.

Turkington was sixth in this session ahead of Excelr8 Hyundai trio Tom Chilton, Ronan Pearson and Ingram, with Cammish rounding out the top 10.

Cammish was another to take to the grass at Surtees during the session, as well as Ingram and Josh Cook late on, while Adam Morgan plonked his WSR BMW lightly into the barriers at Clearways before guiding it back to the pits and heading back out onto the track.

BTCC Brands Hatch Indy - Practice results

FP1

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Jake Hill		18	48.684
2	Ashley Sutton		25	48.781	0.097	0.097
3	Dan Cammish		25	48.884	0.200	0.103
4	Tom Ingram		21	48.925	0.241	0.041
5	Colin Turkington		25	48.993	0.309	0.068
6	Bobby Thompson		24	49.008	0.324	0.015
7	Daniel Rowbottom		25	49.047	0.363	0.039
8	Adam Morgan		23	49.157	0.473	0.110
9	Ricky Collard		26	49.220	0.536	0.063
10	Stephen Jelley		18	49.224	0.540	0.004
11	Rory Butcher		22	49.251	0.567	0.027
12	George Gamble		25	49.284	0.600	0.033
13	Mikey Doble		22	49.291	0.607	0.007
14	Josh Cook		17	49.372	0.688	0.081
15	Daniel Lloyd		22	49.415	0.731	0.043
16	Aiden Moffat		23	49.464	0.780	0.049
17	Aron Taylor-Smith		26	49.486	0.802	0.022
18	Jack Butel		28	49.513	0.829	0.027
19	Dexter Patterson		28	49.537	0.853	0.024
20	Andrew Watson		24	49.666	0.982	0.129
21	Jade Edwards		29	49.779	1.095	0.113
22	Sam Osborne		23	50.234	1.550	0.455
23	Will Powell		24	51.344	2.660	1.110
24	Nick Halstead		18	54.104	5.420	2.760
25	Ronan Pearson		16	1'04.065	15.381	9.961
26	Tom Chilton		9	1'04.408	15.724	0.343
27	Nicolas Hamilton		7
View full results

FP2 results to follow