Free practice: MG good; Muller v good

Phil Bennett, back after his Oulton Park ban, went to the top of the times early in the second session in his unballasted Egg Sport Astra, only for Muller to demolish his standard with seven minutes to go. The other Egg car of James Thompson followed suit by also demoting Bennett a couple of minutes later.

"It was a perfect lap, except in one corner," said Muller. "The problem is I don't know if I can do it twice. Even so, my second best lap was still quicker than anyone else."

After languishing a long way from the other Vauxhalls for most of practice Thompson was happy with his effort: "We've got a bit of a vibration on the car and I didn't do too many [quick] laps. But I just popped one in right at the end to see where we were. I could have gone quicker but I wanted to save my tyres."

Behind Bennett, championship leader Jason Plato brought up the rear of the four Vauxhalls. "We tried a few things that didn't work in the second session," he explained. "We were trying to move the ball on but we'll have to backtrack now and put our original diff in."

Next up was the impressive West Surrey Racing-run, Lola-built MG, with Anthony Reid aboard. The car is losing 3mph on the speedtraps, but looks very stable through the fast corners. Reid only just failed to match WSR boss Dick Bennetts' ambition of getting within a second of the fastest time, thanks to Muller's effort.

"The chassis is very much going the way I want it to," said the Scot. "That's really good news. It's bloody good because we've only had a handful of practice days and the car has worked well straight away. It's well balanced, hooks up well and sits down nicely. We've just got to improve the turn-in on slow corners and do a bit of work on engine mapping. A good starting point."

Team mate Warren Hughes ended up ninth in the newer of the two cars.

Peugeot's Steve Soper took a step backwards after his near Oulton Park win, sitting out most of the first session with what the team described as an engine mapping glitch. Dan Eaves upheld team honour in sixth, though Soper did a consistent run in session two.

Between the two 406 Coupes is Thomas Erdos's Lexus, moving back in the right direction after its Oulton Park troubles, while the two Alfas - which had one fraught session apiece - bring up the rear.

In the Production class battle, title contenders Simon Harrison, Roger Moen and James Kaye were first, third and sixth respectively, with Gavin Pyper getting his Alfa up to second.


1 Yvan Muller (Vauxhall Astra Coupe), 1m27.795s
2 James Thompson (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe), 1m28.146s
3 Phil Bennett (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe), 1m28.324s
4 Jason Plato (Vauxhall Astra Coupe), 1m28.342s
5 Anthony Reid (MG ZS), 1m28.995s
6 Dan Eaves (Peugeot 406 Coupe), 1m29.105s
7 Thomas Erdos (TMSR Lexus IS200), 1m29.659s
8 Steve Soper (Peugeot 406 Coupe), 1m30.000s
9 Warren Hughes (MG ZS), 1m30.072s
10 Tim Harvey (JSM Alfa Romeo 147), 1m31.577s
11 Mark Blair (JSM Alfa Romeo 147), 1m32.688s

1 Simon Harrison (HTML Peugeot 306), 1m32.807s
2 Gavin Pyper (GA Janspeed Alfa Romeo 156), 1m32.947s
3 Roger Moen (HTML Peugeot 306), 1m33.252s
4 Simon Graves (Barwell Honda Accord), 1m33.495s
5 Mat Jackson (GR Ford Focus), 1m33.501s
6 James Kaye (Barwell Honda Accord), 1m33.638s