Rob Austin edged out Jack Goff in a largely experimental first practice session for this weekends British Touring Car Championship triple header at Donington Park.
The two-time race winner hit the front with a 1:10.113 during the second half of the session as a number of teams chose to dedicate the forty-minute session to scrubbing tyres and experimenting with setup options in the cold track and ambient temperatures.
Jake Hill turned heads with third in the Volkswagen CC, pipping Tom Ingram by a thousandth of a second.
Colin Turkington came fifth as the leading manufacturer entry for Team BMW, though his team-mates Rob Collard and Brands Hatch race-winner Andrew Jordan could only manage 11th and 17th.
Michael Epps cemented Team.HARD’s early weekend form with sixth, whilst Aiden Moffat came seventh, though he was shown a black flag by officials in the closing stages for exceeding track limits. Chris Smiley repeated his Media Day form in eighth.
Another man enjoying a competitive spell, Adam Morgan, took eighth having set the early pace, and Ashley Sutton went some way to curing Subaru’s Brands Hatch woes in tenth. His team-mates finished 24th (Price), 25th (Plato) and 28th (Cole).
Both Josh Cook and Jeff Smith were shown black and white flags, otherwise the session passed free of incident, somewhat surprisingly given the cold temperatures and resurfaced circuit at Redgate, Hollywood and McLeans.
Honda notably hid their pace during FP1, with neither Matt Neal nor defending champion Gordon Shedden electing to set a lap time for two-thirds of the session, and when they did it proved only enough for 12th and 18th respectively.
Motorbase also seemed to struggle in 15th, Mat Jackson two-thirds of a second adrift of Austin’s benchmark, whilst the same could be true of Vauxhall as Senna Proctor failed to set a timed lap.
The session is incredibly unlikely to have any significant bearing as far as weekend form goes, but Rob Austin takes the bragging rights into the second free practice session, which gets underway at 12:25.
Session results
| POS | NO | CL | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 11 | Rob AUSTIN |  |
Handy Motorsport | Toyota Avensis | 21 | 1:10.113 | 0.000 | |
| 2 | 31 | Jack GOFF | |
Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 16 | 1:10.144 | 0.031 | |
| 3 | 24 | Jake HILL | |
TAG Racing | Volkswagen CC | 21 | 1:10.237 | 0.124 | |
| 4 | 80 | Tom INGRAM | |
Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota Avensis | 21 | 1:10.275 | 0.162 | |
| 5 | 4 | M | Colin TURKINGTON | |
Team BMW | BMW 125i M Sport | 23 | 1:10.325 | 0.212 |
| 6 | 12 | Mike EPPS | |
Autoaid / RCIB Insurance Racing | Volkswagen CC | 20 | 1:10.491 | 0.378 | |
| 7 | 16 | Aiden MOFFAT | |
Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | 19 | 1:10.573 | 0.460 | |
| 8 | 22 | Chris SMILEY | |
BTC Norlin Racing | Chevrolet Cruze | 21 | 1:10.576 | 0.463 | |
| 9 | 33 | Adam MORGAN | |
Ciceley Motorsport | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | 24 | 1:10.640 | 0.527 | |
| 10 | 116 | M | Ashley SUTTON | |
Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 18 | 1:10.705 | 0.592 |
| 11 | 5 | M | Rob COLLARD | |
Team BMW | BMW 125i M Sport | 21 | 1:10.784 | 0.671 |
| 12 | 52 | M | Gordon SHEDDEN | |
Halfords Yuasa Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 18 | 1:10.818 | 0.705 |
| 13 | 2 | M | Tom CHILTON | |
Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 18 | 1:10.823 | 0.710 |
| 14 | 55 | Jeff SMITH | |
Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 23 | 1:10.842 | 0.729 | |
| 15 | 3 | Mat JACKSON | |
Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | 21 | 1:10.890 | 0.777 | |
| 16 | 40 | M | Árón TAYLOR-SMITH |  |
MG Racing RCIB Insurance | MG6GT | 21 | 1:10.950 | 0.837 |
| 17 | 77 | M | Andrew JORDAN | |
BMW Pirtek Racing | BMW 125i M Sport | 23 | 1:10.953 | 0.840 |
| 18 | 25 | M | Matt NEAL | |
Halfords Yuasa Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 17 | 1:11.161 | 1.048 |
| 19 | 48 | Ollie JACKSON | |
AmDtuning.com with Cobra Exhausts | Audi S3 | 14 | 1:11.178 | 1.065 | |
| 20 | 66 | Josh COOK | |
Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport | Ford Focus | 19 | 1:11.279 | 1.166 | |
| 21 | 23 | M | Daniel LLOYD | |
MG Racing RCIB Insurance | MG6GT | 17 | 1:11.334 | 1.221 |
| 22 | 10 | Ant WHORTON-EALES | |
AmDtuning.com with Cobra Exhausts | Audi S3 | 23 | 1:11.428 | 1.315 | |
| 23 | 61 | Will BURNS | |
Autoaid / RCIB Insurance Racing | Volkswagen CC | 14 | 1:11.469 | 1.356 | |
| 24 | 28 | M | Josh PRICE | |
BMR Racing Academy | Subaru Levorg GT | 22 | 1:11.592 | 1.479 |
| 25 | 99 | M | Jason PLATO | |
Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 17 | 1:11.595 | 1.482 |
| 26 | 7 | Stephen JELLEY | |
Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport | Ford Focus | 19 | 1:11.610 | 1.497 | |
| 27 | 30 | Martin DEPPER | |
Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | 22 | 1:11.633 | 1.520 | |
| 28 | 20 | M | James COLE | |
Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 17 | 1:11.813 | 1.700 |
| 29 | 300 | Luke DAVENPORT | |
Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | 17 | 1:12.047 | 1.934 | |
| 30 | 17 | Dave NEWSHAM | |
BTC Norlin Racing | Chevrolet Cruze | 13 | 1:12.695 | 2.582 | |
| 31 | 303 | M | Matt SIMPSON | |
Simpson Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 18 | 1:13.811 | 3.698 |
| 32 | 18 | M | Senna PROCTOR | |
Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 3 | No time | N/A |