Giovanardi tops Rockingham test

The Italian was fastest at Rockingham in the new Vauxhall Vectra, but he admitted that he is not concentrating on pre-season laptimes too much.

"I don't care about the time too much," he said, "but I'm really confident because I feel I have a really good car.

"But Team Halfords have not run their Honda Civic yet and we know that Team RAC are at the beginning with the BMW. This is only an indicator of what might happen."

Colin Turkington was the closest of Giovanardi's potential championship rivals in the world championship-winning BMW 320si for Team RAC, but the pair were split by the BTC-spec Honda Integra of Mike Jordan.

Giovanardi believes that the new Vectra is a big improvement on the Astra model used by the team last year, and he is hoping to start the new season well after spending a year learning in the BTCC.

"If I look at the latter part of last season, my performance was better, and I hope to start from the same position this time," he said.

"I hope to win and I think from the beginning we will be fast. This car is a big difference compared to the Astra."

The SEAT duo of Darren Turner and Jason Plato completed a top five that was covered by just three tenths of a second, while Tom Chilton was half a second adrift of his Vauxhall teammate with the sixth fastest time.

Fourteen of the 27 cars entered for this year's BTCC set a time at the official test on Tuesday, although Tom Onslow-Cole shared the sole BMW with Turkington, while Matt Allison and Jason Hughes did not register an official time.