Rory Butcher goes fastest in first Silverstone practice

Toyota’s Rory Butcher set the pace in the first British Touring Car Championship practice session at Silverstone, pipping Excelr8 Motorsport’s Chris Smiley in the final minutes of the session.

Smiely had put his Hyundai on top of the times inside the opening ten minutes with a lap of 57.838 seconds, with the Northern Irishman subsequently improving three times after that, settling on a lap of 57.488 seconds.

That lap for the Hyundai driver then stood for the next 23 minutes, until Butcher posted the session’s benchmark time of 57.478 seconds with just under four minutes to go.

Smiley thus ended up a mere 0.010 seconds behind Butcher, with Laser tools Racing’s Aiden Moffat third fastest, 0.146 seconds adrift, the Infiniti driver also gaining a few places in the final minutes.

Championship leader Ash Sutton was directly behind his team-mate in fourth, two tenths off the pace.

Excelr8 Motorsport’s Tom Ingram, who says losing success ballast going into this weekend could be a ‘blessing in disguise’ was fifth fastest in his Hyundai, 0.247 seconds off the pace in a marked improvement on his form from last weekend, at a venue where he has historically performed well.

BTC Racing’s Josh Cook was the leading Honda driver in sixth, ahead of Team Dynamics’ Daniel Rowbottom in seventh.

For the second meeting in a row, Toyota’s Sam Smelt made it into the top ten in practice and was eighth, whilst the top ten was completed by Team HARD’s Jack Goff and Team Dynamics’ Gordon Shedden.

Notably, none of the WSR BMW drivers made it into the top ten, with Stephen Jelley the best-placed Team BMW driver in 12^th, one place behind the Ciceley Motorsport BMW of Tom Chilton and just under half a second off the pace.

Colin Turkington was only 25^th, eight tenths off the pace, and slower than Andrew Jordan, who was 22^nd, in the BTCC Hybrid, which is taking part in this weekend’s event as an ‘invisible’ entrant.

Second practice is scheduled to get underway at 12:05 BST, followed by qualifying at 14:50 BST.

Session results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	6		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	20	57.478	–
2	22		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	27	57.488	0.010
3	16		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	32	57.624	0.146
4	1		Ashley SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	26	57.695	0.217
5	80		Tom INGRAM	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	24	57.725	0.247
6	66		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	25	57.748	0.270
7	32		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	21	57.780	0.302
8	23		Sam SMELT	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	32	57.792	0.314
9	31		Jack GOFF	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	26	57.879	0.401
10	52		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	26	57.882	0.404
11	3		Tom CHILTON	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	25	57.941	0.463
12	12		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	26	57.975	0.497
13	96		Jack BUTEL	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	22	57.986	0.508
14	11		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	21	58.023	0.545
15	123		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	20	58.052	0.574
16	33		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	19	58.103	0.625
17	18		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	19	58.104	0.626
18	15		Tom OLIPHANT	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	31	58.135	0.657
19	40		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions	CUPRA Leon	21	58.182	0.704
20	4		Sam OSBORNE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	25	58.194	0.716
21	48		Ollie JACKSON	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	25	58.204	0.726
22	2022		Andrew JORDAN	–	Toyota Corolla BTCC Hybrid	15	58.228	0.750
23	41		Carl BOARDLEY	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	27	58.247	0.769
24	24		Jake HILL	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	25	58.292	0.814
25	2		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	24	58.306	0.828
26	62		Rick PARFITT Jr	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	25	58.325	0.847
27	19		Jack MITCHELL	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	25	58.342	0.864
28	99		Jade EDWARDS	PHSC with BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	27	58.386	0.908
29	44		Andy NEATE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	26	58.449	0.971
30	28		Nicolas HAMILTON	ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading	CUPRA Leon	26	58.527	1.049