Turkington leads first practice

The Ulsterman had been a front-runner all session, but eventually took his WSR-run BMW around the undulating circuit in 49.600 seconds, hitting the top spot in the final minute.

His time deposed the diesel-powered SEAT of Jason Plato, in a session that saw a brief period of rain early on and only saw the times tumble in the last three minutes.

Plato was two hundredths of a second slower than Turkington with champion Fabrizio Giovanardi third for Vauxhall, Mat Jackson fourth in his Dealer UK BMW and rookie Steven Kane an impressive fifth in his Motorbase BMW.

Darren Turner put the second SEAT in fifth place with the Team Dynamics Hondas of Tom Chilton and Gordon Shedden in close attention as a second covered the top 15 cars.

Two-time champion Matt Neal, making his return to the seat of a Vauxhall for the first time since 2002, suffered a disappointing start to his season as his Vectra ground to a halt on the Cooper straight with 15 minutes remaining - bringing out the red flags.

"It's just an o-ring that popped off. No biggie. It will only take five minutes to fix too. And it's far better it happen now than tomorrow," Neal told autosport.com.

Series newcomer Michael Doyle failed to take to the track in his In-Tune Racing Honda Civic, but there was better news for Adam Jones, who put his first laps on the GR-Asia-run SEAT Leon that he will race this season.

Pos Driver                Car         Time        Gap
 1. Colin Turkington      BMW         49.600        
 2. Jason Plato           SEAT        49.623   +0.023
 3. Fabrizio Giovanardi   Vauxhall    49.648   +0.048
 4. Mat Jackson           BMW         49.761   +0.161
 5. Steven Kane           BMW         49.802   +0.202
 6. Darren Turner         SEAT        49.865   +0.265
 7. Tom Chilton           Honda       49.879   +0.279
 8. Gordon Shedden        Honda       49.899   +0.299
 9. Stephen Jelley        BMW         50.056   +0.456
10. Tom Onslow-Cole       Vauxhall    50.090   +0.490
11. Adam Jones            SEAT        50.120   +0.520
12. Andrew Jordan         Honda       50.163   +0.563
13. Mike Jordan           Honda       50.250   +0.650
14. Matt Allison          Chevrolet   50.385   +0.785
15. Rob Collard           BMW         50.549   +0.949
16. Matt Neal             Vauxhall    50.779   +1.179
17. Harry Vaulkhard       Chevrolet   50.970   +1.370
18. Chris Stockton        Lexus       51.060   +1.460
19. Jason Hughes          Honda       51.202   +1.602
20. Erkut Kizilirmak      Vauxhall    51.210   +1.610
21. Alan Taylor           Honda       52.375   +2.775
22. Stuart Oliver         Lexus       54.555   +4.955
23. Martyn Bell           Vauxhall    55.260   +5.660
24. John George           Honda       56.350   +6.750