Gordon Shedden leads first British Touring Car practice at home track Knockhill

The local ace sat out the first half of the damp-but-drying session before coming out and going straight to the top of the timesheets.

For a while the Honda driver was a second faster than the rest, but Tom Chilton, who had earlier exchanged fastest times with his Arena Motorsport team-mate Tom Onslow-Cole, eventually got within 0.4s of Shedden in his Ford Focus.

Shedden's team-mate Matt Neal was third after a late effort, despite recovering from a broken hand sustained in training since the last round.

Onslow-Cole ended up fourth, ahead of the impressive Welch Automotive Proton NGTC machine of Daniel Welch, running in only its second race weekend.

In a session where many drivers chose to scrub in tyres, James Nash took his Triple Eight Vauxhall Vectra to sixth, while new team-mate Aron Smith was 17th.

Championship leader Mat Jackson was seventh in his Motorbase Ford Focus.

The session suffered two red flags, the first when Nick Foster's WSR BMW stopped, and the second when Martin Byford's AmD Milltek VW Golf slowed with a suspected alternator problem.

Pos  Driver           Team/Car              Time       Gap
 1.  Gordon Shedden   Honda                 57.120s
 2.  Tom Chilton      Arena Ford            57.501s    + 0.381s
 3.  Matt Neal        Honda                 58.184s    + 1.064s
 4.  Tom Onslow-Cole  Arena Ford            58.367s    + 1.247s
 5.  Daniel Welch     Welch Proton          58.591s    + 1.471s
 6.  James Nash       Triple 8 Vauxhall     58.714s    + 1.594s
 7.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford        58.725s    + 1.605s
 8.  Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet             58.834s    + 1.714s
 9.  Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota        58.918s    + 1.798s
10.  Tom Boardman     Special Tuning SEAT   58.952s    + 1.832s
11.  Martin Byford    AmD Volkswagen        58.967s    + 1.847s
12.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Vauxhall     58.988s    + 1.868s
13.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW               58.989s    + 1.869s
14.  Andy Neate       Arena Ford            59.022s    + 1.902s
15.  Dave Newsham     Special Tuning SEAT   59.212s    + 2.092s
16.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Vauxhall     59.504s    + 2.384s
17.  Aron Smith       Triple 8 Vauxhall     59.647s    + 2.527s
18.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW               59.656s    + 2.536s
19.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet             1m00.092s  + 2.972s
20.  Paul O'Neill     Tech-Speed Chevrolet  1m00.231s  + 3.111s
21.  Rob Austin       Rob Austin Audi       1m00.437s  + 3.317s
22.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford        1m00.639s  + 3.519s
23.  John George      Tech-Speed Chevrolet  1m00.880s  + 3.760s
24.  Chris James      ES Chevrolet          1m01.433s  + 4.313s