The Northern Irishman eclipsed the quickest time of the opening session set by Ash Sutton, which had been a gargantuan 0.476 seconds clear of closest pursuer Turkington and had seemed to send out an ominous warning that the three-time title winner and the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus squad will be tough to beat in 2023.

During a run of several laps in the early stages of the lunchtime session, Turkington and his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport chipped 0.024s off Sutton’s early-morning time, which was half a second beneath the qualifying lap record set by Jake Hill last season thanks to track resurfacing work.

“I’m enjoying driving the car,” said Turkington. “Donington has always been a good circuit for the 3-Series, and with the extra grip you can push a bit harder.

“But there’s always more to find and that’s the tricky bit. I didn’t expect we’d be in the sevens [both Turkington and Sutton set laps below 1m08s], but I’m sure there’ll be some more people nudging in there in qualifying.”

Sutton was the only driver in the overall top 10 not to improve in the second session, although he did a 1m08.1s during a nine-lap ‘race’ run, while Turkington set a few times in that bracket.

But the morning time set by the new father (Sutton’s girlfriend gave birth to a baby boy on Tuesday) was still good for second fastest overall.

Although he was running slower, Sutton looked good for second in the lunchtime session until a raft of late improvements pushed him down to fifth.

Quickest of those was his new team-mate Dan Rowbottom, who has looked strong all day on his first race weekend in a Motorbase Ford since switching from the Team Dynamics Honda squad.

The bearded Midlander narrowly pipped Turkington’s WSR BMW stablemate Jake Hill plus a rejuvenated Tom Chilton, giving a new-build Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N its competitive debut.

Fastest of the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla contingent was Ricky Collard in sixth position, just ahead of the BMW of Adam Morgan, who is beginning his first race weekend with WSR.

Dan Cammish (Motorbase Ford) was eighth while reigning champion Tom Ingram bounced back from an electrical fault that stopped him at Schwantz Curve early in the first session, triggering the only red flag of free practice, to go ninth in the later period.

The top 10 was completed by the fastest of the six-strong Team Hard Cupra Leon contingent in the form of Dan Lloyd.

BTCC Donington: Full practice results

FP2

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Colin Turkington	22	1'07.951
2	Daniel Rowbottom	23	1'08.046	0.095
3	Jake Hill	18	1'08.064	0.113
4	Tom Chilton	21	1'08.098	0.147
5	Ashley Sutton	21	1'08.159	0.208
6	Ricky Collard	22	1'08.221	0.270
7	Adam Morgan	18	1'08.263	0.312
8	Dan Cammish	21	1'08.288	0.337
9	Tom Ingram	15	1'08.326	0.375
10	Daniel Lloyd	19	1'08.519	0.568
11	Stephen Jelley	18	1'08.610	0.659
12	Sam Osborne	20	1'08.632	0.681
13	Rory Butcher	18	1'08.734	0.783
14	Andrew Watson	20	1'08.745	0.794
15	Ronan Pearson	20	1'08.783	0.832
16	Aron Taylor-Smith	17	1'08.815	0.864
17	George Gamble	16	1'08.822	0.871
18	Dexter Patterson	22	1'08.846	0.895
19	Josh Cook	17	1'08.950	0.999
20	Bobby Thompson	8	1'09.055	1.104
21	Jack Butel	19	1'09.304	1.353
22	Mikey Doble	19	1'09.433	1.482
23	Aiden Moffat	17	1'09.685	1.734
24	Nick Halstead	12	1'09.760	1.809
25	Will Powell	17	1'09.874	1.923
26	Nicolas Hamilton	19	1'09.994	2.043
27	Jade Edwards	10	1'10.599	2.648
View full results

FP1

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Ashley Sutton	14	1'07.975
2	Colin Turkington	21	1'08.439	0.464
3	Jake Hill	13	1'08.585	0.610
4	Ricky Collard	16	1'08.641	0.666
5	Daniel Rowbottom	16	1'08.648	0.673
6	Stephen Jelley	13	1'08.725	0.750
7	Adam Morgan	15	1'08.731	0.756
8	Dan Cammish	13	1'08.858	0.883
9	Ronan Pearson	16	1'08.866	0.891
10	Tom Chilton	9	1'08.878	0.903
11	George Gamble	16	1'09.053	1.078
12	Andrew Watson	16	1'09.099	1.124
13	Aiden Moffat	12	1'09.141	1.166
14	Daniel Lloyd	12	1'09.242	1.267
15	Rory Butcher	13	1'09.310	1.335
16	Aron Taylor-Smith	15	1'09.315	1.340
17	Sam Osborne	11	1'09.776	1.801
18	Jack Butel	14	1'09.906	1.931
19	Dexter Patterson	11	1'09.922	1.947
20	Nicolas Hamilton	16	1'10.137	2.162
21	Mikey Doble	14	1'10.227	2.252
22	Nick Halstead	16	1'10.289	2.314
23	Will Powell	17	1'10.751	2.776
24	Jade Edwards	7	1'16.457	8.482
25	Josh Cook	6
26	Bobby Thompson	6
27	Tom Ingram	4
View full results