Jason Plato remained on top in the second free practice session for the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park, as Matt Neal improved his pace to go second, a mere 0.014 seconds slower.
Plato, carrying the maximum 45 kg of success ballast, set a time of 1:27.426 – some ten seconds faster than in the morning’s first practice session.
Andrew Jordan in the Pirtek Motorsport Honda Civic improved his performance from the morning session to post the third fastest time, whilst Gordon Shedden improved dramatically on his time in the morning session to go fourth fastest.
Rob Collard was the top BMW driver in fifth, whilst Andy Neate continued to demonstrate his prowess of the Cheshire circuit to go sixth fastest, although more than 1.3 seconds slower than his MG team-mate Plato.
Once again showing good speed in practice was Speedworks’ Adam Morgan who was seventh fastest, ahead of Jeff Smith in the second Pirtek Honda and Árón Smith. Frank Wrathall completed the top ten with a lap 1.763 seconds off the lead pace.
There were two red flags during the session as drivers found the drying conditions challenging. Mat Jackson, second fastest in the morning’s first session, crashed his Ford Focus on the exit of Old Hall, meaning that the Redstone Racing driver was unable to post a time. The second stoppage, which brought the session to a premature end, occurred when AmD Tuning’s Ollie Jackson crashed his Volkswagen Golf at Cascades, damaging the barriers.