Practice: Thompson in touch

Thompson's Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe finished up more than 0.6 seconds clear of team mate Phil Bennett, keeping alive his slender hopes of staying in the championship hunt.

But the skinheaded Thames Ditton-based Yorkshireman refused to get carried away. "We'll see what the others do when they use a few more tyres," he said. "I don't think everybody's shown their hand yet. It's still a bit scrappy at the moment but there are a few little things we can tweak."

Of the warring works Vauxhall duo, Yvan Muller pipped Jason Plato for third fastest time. "I put new tyres on," said the Frenchman, "but we tried something that didn't work. Otherwise I'm quite happy with the car."

Peugeot's Steve Soper is, as usual, just in touch with the Vauxhalls, with the MGs of Anthony Reid and Warren Hughes next up. "I've got a lot of turn-in understeer," said Reid. "Warren's car doesn't have that, so we know what the cause is. We've definitely improved since Silverstone [when the ZS made its debut] though."

Of the rest, Thomas Erdos continued his recent disappointing form in the Lexus, which is having major problems with tyres that will not get up to effective operating temperature.

The battle for the Production class title remains firmly poised, with James Kaye heading Simon Harrison and Roger Moen this morning.

Apart from that, the greatest source of amusement surrounded the launch of Peugeot's new energy drink tie-up. The Hypotonic 240 brew apparently has a carefully worked out 'osmolality', and contains an ingredient known as acesulfame-K. If nothing else it has at least provided retro-futurist synth pop exponents Stereolab with a host of song titles for their next album.

James Thompson (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 1m41.476s
Phil Bennett (Egg Sport Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 1m42.103s
Yvan Muller (Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 1m42.144s
Jason Plato (Vauxhall Astra Coupe) 1m42.183s
Steve Soper (Peugeot 406 Coupe) 1m42.625s
Anthony Reid (MG ZS) 1m43.058s
Warren Hughes (MG ZS) 1m43.085s
Dan Eaves (Peugeot 406 Coupe) 1m43.165s
Tom Ferrier (JSM Alfa Romeo 147) 1m43.790s
Thomas Erdos (TMSR Lexus IS200) 1m44.247s

James Kaye (Barwell Honda Accord) 1m47.522s
Simon Harrison (HTML Peugeot 306) 1m47.715s
Roger Moen (HTML Peugeot 306) 1m47.719s
Simon Graves (Barwell Honda Accord) 1m47.731s
Gavin Pyper (GA Janspeed Alfa Romeo 156) 1m47.798s
Paul O'Neill (Techspeed Peugeot 306) 1m48.357s