Tom Ingram leads opening BTCC practice session at Brands Hatch
Speedworks Motorsport racer Tom Ingram topped the opening free practice session ahead of the British Touring Car Championship season opener at Brands Hatch
The Toyota Avensis driver, whose car had stopped on track earlier on in the 40-minute session with a rear hub problem, clocked 48.230-second lap to eclipse factory Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R driver Matt Neal by 0.08 seconds.
Last year's pole position time was a 48.411s lap, set by Andy Priaulx in his WSR BMW 125i M Sport.
"We were playing around with the set-up, and we put some things on the car that worked and some that didn't," said Ingram.
"I was pleasantly surprised with the laptime - it is the second year in a row that I have topped the first free practice session. That is a nice feeling."
Behind Neal was the WSR BMW 125i of Rob Collard.
Rookie Ash Sutton's MG was fourth, ahead of Sam Tordoff (WSR BMW 125i M Sport) and reigning champion Gordon Shedden (Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R).
The four new factory-backed Subaru Levorg cars struggled for outright pace given their limited running, having turned a wheel for the first time on Friday afternoon.
The fastest of them was double champion Colin Turkington, who was 17th, 0.9s behind Ingram, with James Cole's version 25th, while Jason Plato was 27th.
Team principal and driver Warren Scott's running was cut short by an oil leak and he was 31st and last after only completing seven laps.
The only car not to make the session was the Team Hard Toyota Avensis of Michael Epps, who had a problem with his car's power steering.
PRACTICE ONE RESULTS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Tom Ingram | Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota | 48.230s | - | 27 |
2 | Matt Neal | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 48.317s | 0.087s | 24 |
3 | Rob Collard | WSR | BMW | 48.345s | 0.115s | 23 |
4 | Ash Sutton | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 48.362s | 0.132s | 17 |
5 | Sam Tordoff | WSR | BMW | 48.371s | 0.141s | 26 |
6 | Gordon Shedden | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 48.388s | 0.158s | 26 |
7 | Jack Goff | WSR | BMW | 48.507s | 0.277s | 28 |
8 | Josh Cook | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 48.541s | 0.311s | 26 |
9 | Andrew Jordan | Motorbase Performance | Ford | 48.578s | 0.348s | 29 |
10 | Adam Morgan | Ciceley Racing | Mercedes | 48.595s | 0.365s | 28 |
11 | Jeff Smith | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 48.732s | 0.502s | 27 |
12 | Mat Jackson | Motorbase Performance | Ford | 48.811s | 0.581s | 30 |
13 | Rob Austin | Handy Motorsport | Toyota | 48.911s | 0.681s | 24 |
14 | Aron Taylor-Smith | Team BKR | Volkswagen | 48.943s | 0.713s | 29 |
15 | Jake Hill | Team Hard | Toyota | 49.020s | 0.790s | 29 |
16 | Aiden Moffat | Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes | 49.114s | 0.884s | 22 |
17 | Colin Turkington | Team BMR | Subaru | 49.133s | 0.903s | 25 |
18 | Matt Simpson | Speedworks Motorsport | Honda | 49.185s | 0.955s | 32 |
19 | Andy Neate | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 49.279s | 1.049s | 26 |
20 | Alex Martin | Team Parker Racing | Ford | 49.319s | 1.089s | 32 |
21 | Hunter Abbott | Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet | 49.339s | 1.109s | 20 |
22 | Martin Depper | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 49.359s | 1.129s | 26 |
23 | Ollie Jackson | AmD Tuning | Audi | 49.400s | 1.170s | 27 |
24 | Chris Smiley | Team Hard | Toyota | 49.665s | 1.435s | 31 |
25 | James Cole | Team BMR | Subaru | 49.809s | 1.579s | 35 |
26 | Stewart Lines | Maximum Motorsport | Ford | 50.382s | 2.152s | 20 |
27 | Jason Plato | Team BMR | Subaru | 50.497s | 2.267s | 17 |
28 | Mark Howard | Team BKR | Volkswagen | 50.834s | 2.604s | 24 |
29 | Kelvin Fletcher | Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet | 53.370s | 5.140s | 16 |
30 | Daniel Welch | Welch Motorsport | Proton | 1m00.125s | 11.895s | 6 |
31 | Warren Scott | Team BMR | Subaru | 1m00.712s | 12.482s | 7 |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments