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BTCC Brands Hatch: Oliphant heads WSR 1-2-3, Moffat caused red flag

WSR earned a clean sweep in the second British Touring Car Championship practice session at Brands Hatch, locking out the top three positions in the dying moments with Tom Oliphant fastest

The new for 2019 BMW 330i M Sport has been strong out of the box during testing and Andrew Jordan went fastest in the first practice session of the season earlier on Saturday.

But it was his team-mate Oliphant who came out on top in the second 40-minute run, setting a benchmark time of 48.475 seconds to beat Jordan and Colin Turkington.

Oliphant set the early pace as the first runner to post a sub 48-second lap before he was toppled by Jason Plato - finally showing the pace that Power Maxed Racing had been confident of finding from the Vauxhall Astra.

But Oliphant responded immediately to go back ahead of two-time BTCC champion Plato.

Then, at the halfway point, a small rain shower forced most runners to switch to the wet tyres.

But Mercedes A-Class driver Aidan Moffat was caught out at Paddock Hill Bend as he tried to scrub in new tyres, ending up in the gravel to cause a red flag with 10 minutes to go.

The track was reopened for a seven-minute shootout and a flurry of cars headed out.

It looked as though Plato would retain second ahead of Team Dynamics's Dan Cammish, given the conditions.

But the track came to the rear-wheel drive cars and so as the chequered flag was waved Jordan eclipsed Plato to move second on his final flying run with a time of 48.574s.

Turkington followed suit, with his 48.667s taking all three BMWs to the top positions.

Plato held onto fourth ahead of the quickest Motorbase Ford Focus RS of Tom Chilton, who is just two away from scoring his 1500th BTCC point.

Tom Ingram had a slow start to FP2, but in the final minutes he set a time good enough to take the new Toyota Corolla into sixth for Speedworks ahead of Jake Hill, Cammish and Chilton's team-mate Ollie Jackson.

AmD Tuning's Sam Tordoff, who broke the qualifying lap record for the Indy circuit during pre-season testing, rounded out the top 10.

The 2017 champion Ash Sutton was 12th in his Subaru Levorg GT for Team BMR.

Matt Neal took the second Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R to 16th ahead of Plato's Astra team-mate Rob Collard.

Ahead of his series debut, 1992 Le Mans winner Mark Blundell finished the final practice session in 22nd.

Nic Hamilton ended up 26th, while Moffat was not able to resume running after his off so did not improve on his 28th-place effort.

FP2 results

Pos Driver Team Car Gap Laps
1 Tom Oliphant WSR BMW 48.475s 34
2 Andrew Jordan WSR BMW 0.099s 23
3 Colin Turkington WSR BMW 0.192s 30
4 Jason Plato Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall 0.399s 23
5 Tom Chilton Motorbase Performance Ford 0.483s 19
6 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 0.505s 21
7 Jake Hill Trade Price Cars Racing Audi 0.516s 27
8 Dan Cammish Team Dynamics Honda 0.606s 23
9 Ollie Jackson Motorbase Performance Ford 0.654s 25
10 Sam Tordoff AmD Tuning Honda 0.671s 23
11 Chris Smiley BTC Racing Honda 0.706s 18
12 Ash Sutton BMR Racing Subaru 0.717s 22
13 Stephen Jelley Team Parker Racing BMW 0.786s 22
14 Matt Simpson Simpson Racing Honda 0.831s 30
15 Adam Morgan Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 0.867s 28
16 Matt Neal Team Dynamics Honda 0.871s 26
17 Rob Collard Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall 0.883s 28
18 Rory Butcher AmD Tuning Honda 0.904s 20
19 Jack Goff Team Hard Volkswagen 0.942s 26
20 Senna Proctor BMR Racing Subaru 0.989s 26
21 Carl Boardley Team Hard Volkswagen 1.059s 25
22 Mark Blundell Trade Price Cars Racing Audi 1.285s 17
23 Rob Smith Excelr8 Motorsport MG 1.375s 33
24 Bobby Thompson Team Hard Volkswagen 1.501s 16
25 Michael Crees Team Hard Volkswagen 1.576s 19
26 Nicolas Hamilton Motorbase Performance Ford 1.611s 22
27 Daniel Rowbottom Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 1.827s 24
28 Aiden Moffat Laser Tools Racing Mercedes 2.016s 19
29 Sam Osborne Excelr8 Motorsport MG 2.077s 32
30 Josh Cook BTC Racing Honda 4.708s 11


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