Plato fastest in Snetterton practice

The Chevrolet driver, who was carrying 36kg of success ballast, flew out of the blocks to head the morning session on a mostly dry track that still had some moisture on it.

He then knocked over half a second off his time to head the afternoon running in 1m11.983s on what was, by then, a totally dry track.

James Nash, 11th quickest in the morning, produced a brilliant effort to rocket up to second overall with seven minutes of the session left, the Triple 8 Vauxhall driver's time less than a hundredth of a second slower than Plato's.

Alex MacDowall made it two Chevrolets in the top three while Rob Collard's WSR BMW and Andrew Jordan's Eurotech Vauxhall rounded out the top five.

Tom Onslow-Cole was the best of the Arena Ford drivers on a track expected to favour the powerful LPG-powered engines of the Focuses. He was under half a second off the pace while his team-mate Tom Chilton was back in 10th.

The Motorbase BMWs of Steven Kane and Mat Jackson were seventh and ninth, sandwiching Paul O'Neill's Tech-Speed Honda.

Jackson went off the track at Riches during the morning session while trying to avoid Martin Johnson's Boulevard Vauxhall, which had just left the pits. The worst damage done to his car was a muddied front splitter.

The championship-leading Honda team looked off-form. Matt Neal, with 45kg of success ballast, was only 11th and Gordon Shedden, carrying 27kg, was 13th.