Aron Taylor-Smith led Mikey Doble in a 1-2 for Power Maxed Racing in free practice for the British Touring Car Championship finale at Brands Hatch.
The experienced Irishman, who clinched the Independents’ title last time out at Silverstone, eclipsed his Jack Sears Trophy champion team-mate right at the chequered flag on the Grand Prix circuit by 0.195 seconds.
The form of PMR’s Vauxhall Astras, which also brought home the 2024 Independents’ teams’ crown at Silverstone, suggested that they will be a fly in the ointment of the overall title fight.
But the picture had changed completely in the latter half of the second of the free practice sessions, when teams began to bolt on the soft-compound Goodyear tyres that competitors must use in one race on Sunday – with the medium mandated for the other two.
Ash Sutton, third in the championship in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST, had become the first to go under the FP1-topping best of Adam Morgan’s West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport.
Then Sutton’s team-mate Dan Rowbottom, the first to go on an attack run on the softs, suddenly lowered that by half a second.
Subsequently, joint championship leader Tom Ingram dipped 0.2s below Sutton’s medium-tyre best in his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback with a 1m30.306s, which by the end of FP2 stood as the best time set all day on that compound.
Boding well for Excelr8 was the pace of Ingram’s team-mate Tom Chilton, who stamped in a 1m30.335s to shade Morgan’s 1m30.347s as second best of those on medium Goodyears.
Sutton and Ingram subsequently went quicker on late runs on soft tyres to finish third and fifth respectively, sandwiching Rowbottom.
Next up were two of the Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla GR Sports, with Aiden Moffat edging out Rob Huff for sixth, and both on soft tyres.
Jake Hill, who is tied on points with Ingram but leads the championship on wins countback, set a 1m30.858s on medium tyres, concentrating mainly on longer ‘race’ runs in his WSR BMW on his way to 13th fastest.
Hill’s team-mate Colin Turkington rounded out the top 10, while Dan Cammish (Alliance Ford) and Josh Cook (Speedworks Toyota), who like Turkington are both mathematically in title contention, were 12th and 15th respectively in FP2 on medium rubber.
The order in FP1, with no one completing a performance run on soft tyres, was perhaps more representative.
Morgan shaded Sutton by 0.017s, followed by Ingram, Turkington, Cook and Hill.
Ingram had a theoretical best in FP1 that would have topped the times by 0.3s based on best sectors, and was confident that everything is looking strong for the weekend.
With the order in FP2 determining which groups drivers run in for the first phase of qualifying, it raises the tantalising prospect of Sutton, Ingram and Hill all running together in the first group. Of the outside title contenders, Cook also goes in the first batch, with Turkington and Cammish in the second.
