Ash Sutton bags top time in second Donington practice

NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton secured the best lap time in the second British Touring Car Championship free practice session at Donington Park, although lap times dropped off compared with earlier in the day.

Sutton put his Ford Focus ST on top of the times after ten minutes of the session had elapsed, and after an initial brief red flag stoppage when a Toyota briefly stopped on track, but his initial effort of 1 minute 11.220 seconds was soon bettered by Ollie Jackson, Jason Plato and then Dan Cammish as a flurry of improvements came in quick succession.

The reigning champion then put in a 1:09.344 on his next lap, and finally improved two laps later to a time of 1:09.176 before the red flags came out when Jade Edwards stopped at Redgate corner with 12 minutes left on the clock.

The session resumed with just over six minutes to go, but there were no changes in the top three places, leaving Sutton, who also completed the most laps, 0.053 seconds ahead of the Toyota of Ricky Collard.

Team Dynamics’ Gordon Shedden was third fastest, just over a tenth off the pace, ahead of the leading Team BMW car of Colin Turkington in fourth, the Northern Irishman having improved on one of his final runs but only bettering his time by 0.002 seconds.

A late improvement saw Stephen Jelley put his BMW in fifth, ahead of the best Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai of first practice pace-setter Tom Ingram in sixth, 0.257 seconds off the pace and over six tenths slower than he had been earlier in the morning.

Dan Lloyd gained six places on his last run to put his Hyundai in seventh, ahead of the second NAPA Racing Ford of Dan Cammish in eighth.

The top ten was completed by Adam Morgan’s Ciceley Motorsport BMW and the Toyota of Rory Butcher.

The leading Team HARD CUPRA was that of Árón Taylor-Smith in 16^th, some 0.689 seconds off the pace.

The top 20 cars were all covered by less than a second, and all drivers except Josh Cook completed ten or more laps.

Cook had been in and out of the pits during the session as his BTC Racing team dealt with technical troubles, having repaired his Honda after he hit a tyre stack in first practice.

Laser Tools Racing’s Aiden Moffat also spent much of the first half of the session in the pits, before taking to the track after the second red flag and ending up in 24^th, as none of the three Infinitis made it into the top twenty.

Qualifying is scheduled to get underway at 15:35 BST.

Session results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	1		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	21	1:09.176	–
2	21		Ricky COLLARD	Toyota GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	1:09.229	0.053
3	52		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type R	15	1:09.315	0.139
4	50		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	20	1:09.324	0.148
5	12		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	16	1:09.383	0.207
6	80		Tom INGRAM	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	15	1:09.433	0.257
7	123		Daniel LLOYD	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	18	1:09.480	0.304
8	9		Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	18	1:09.524	0.348
9	33		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	18	1:09.531	0.355
10	6		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	16	1:09.536	0.360
11	777		Michael CREES	CarStore Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	14	1:09.575	0.399
12	11		Jason PLATO	Rich Energy BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type R	16	1:09.620	0.444
13	42		George GAMBLE	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	16	1:09.625	0.449
14	32		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type R	12	1:09.634	0.458
15	24		Jake HILL	ROKiT MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	10	1:09.692	0.516
16	40		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Yazoo with Safuu.com Racing	CUPRA Leon	18	1:09.865	0.689
17	99		Jade EDWARDS	Rich Energy BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type R	13	1:09.866	0.690
18	3		Tom CHILTON	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	14	1:09.874	0.698
19	19		Bobby THOMPSON	Autobrite Direct with JourneyHero	CUPRA Leon	11	1:09.969	0.793
20	48		Ollie JACKSON	Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan	Ford Focus ST	19	1:09.971	0.795
21	17		Dexter PATTERSON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	15	1:10.481	1.305
22	77		Sam OSBORNE	Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan	Ford Focus ST	18	1:10.535	1.359
23	97		Ash HAND	CarStore Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	15	1:10.637	1.461
24	16		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	10	1:10.653	1.477
25	96		Jack BUTEL	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	15	1:11.095	1.919
26	62		Rick PARFITT JR	Uptonsteel with Euro Car Parts Racing	Infiniti Q50	12	1:12.426	3.250
27	28		Nicolas HAMILTON	Yazoo with Safuu.com Racing	CUPRA Leon	10	1:12.841	3.665
28	66		Josh COOK	Rich Energy BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type R	2	5:30.471	4:21.295