Dan Cammish led the way in free practice as the British Touring Car Championship warmed up for its third round at Snetterton.
The Berkshire-based Yorkshireman enters the weekend fifth in the standings, and therefore with access to nine seconds per lap of TOCA Turbo Boost on the series’ longest circuit. By contrast, Cammish’s team-mate in the Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium squad, runaway championship leader Ash Sutton, has just one second per lap of deployment.
Nevertheless, Sutton lay second to Cammish, with a 1m55.646s to the times-topping 1m55.384s, when the red flags were unfurled with around a quarter of the extended one-hour session remaining, due to debris on the circuit at the final corner.
With just over 10 minutes on the clock when the session resumed, that allowed nearly everyone one final run on the soft-compound Goodyear tyres that are the standard rubber this weekend.
Cammish lowered his best to a 1m55.192s before finally stamping in a 1m55.066s, while the impressive Dexter Patterson, who had spent most of the running doing long runs on the medium option tyres on his Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon, leapt into second place.
The young Scot’s effort was finally eclipsed by reigning champion Tom Ingram, who has just 3s per lap of TTB with his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback and then, on the very final lap, by the sister Excelr8 Hyundai of Tom Chilton.
Tom Ingram, Team Vertu Hyundai i30N
Photo by: JEP
As well as completing an Excelr8 2-3 behind Ingram, Chilton stole a modicum of bragging rights by setting what stood as the fastest lap on medium tyres earlier in the session – a 1m56.840s.
Another to dip below Sutton’s effort was Dan Rowbottom, who placed the lead Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon in fifth place.
Behind sixth-placed Sutton, who failed to improve after the red flag, Chris Smiley was seventh in his Restart Racing Hyundai. Eighth was Gordon Shedden, offering a glimmer of light to Speedworks Motorsport, whose other three Toyota Corolla GR Sports were anchored at the bottom of the times.
Aiden Moffat was ninth fastest in his PMR Audi, while James Dorlin made sure that both Restart Hyundais finished up in the top 10.
With hot weather expected all weekend – and temperatures in the mid-to-high twenties even in free practice – the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sports have been expected to shine since their rear-wheel-drive format takes less out of the tyres than the front-driven opposition.
Both are also on the maximum 20s per lap of TTB. WSR’s pairing of Charles Rainford and Daryl De Leon focused mainly on long runs on medium rubber, and ended up 12th and 16th respectively.
BTCC Snetterton – Practice results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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