Tom Ingram expects the rear-wheel drive cars to improve as the weekend goes on despite topping the opening British Touring Car Championship session at Croft.
The 2.1 mile Yorkshire circuit has typically favoured the BMW 1-series in the past, with the Subaru Levorg GT also enjoying a season-best showing of third and fourth in the morning session.
Ingram’s Toyota Avensis was two tenths of a second ahead of the leading Subaru of Ash Sutton, but says there is equally more time to be found in his front-wheel drive machine.
“A positive start to the weekend,” said Ingram.
“We know this place does tend to favour rear-wheel drive cars and we fully expect them to come on stronger as the day goes on, but it’s obviously good to start on top and without really pushing.
“We still have quite a bit more to find from the car here, but the balance of the car feels good with the weight on-board – we’re just lacking performance out of the hairpins.
“We’ll keep working hard and hopefully we can qualify somewhere inside the top ten this afternoon.”
The second practice session gets underway at 12:00 BST.