Power Maxed Racing’s Árón Taylor-Smith rose to the top of the times in the second British Touring Car Championship practice session at Brands Hatch, as the pace quickened by almost a second.
Taylor-Smith, who has already declared he is gunning to end the season on a high with a victory, was just under two tenths of a second ahead of team-mate Mikey Doble after the duo put in quick laps late on in the session, with Taylor-Smith best time of 1 minute 29.627 seconds coming on his final lap.
Until then, it had been Doble holding the top time for much of the final five minutes of the session, before his fellow Vauxhall racer usurped him.
NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton was third, the best of the title challengers, after again showing strong pace in his Ford, three hundredths of a second ahead of team-mate Daniel Rowbottom in fourth.
EXCELR8 Motorsport’s Tom Ingram was fifth, 0.354 seconds off the pace, ahead of the quickest Toyota of Speedworks Motorsport’s Aiden Moffat in sixth.
Toyota’s Rob Huff was seventh, in front of EXCELR8’s Tom Chilton in eighth, with the BMW duo of Adam Morgan and Colin Turkington completing the top ten, Morgan having only improved by two tenths over his pace-setting lap in FP1, despite track temperatures being over ten degrees higher than earlier in the day.
Toyota’s Andrew Watson, who had crashed in first practice on the Grand Prix loop causing him to miss part of the session, was 11th, just over a second off the pace.
Dan Cammish put his NAPA Ford in 12th, whilst Jake Hill, equal on points at the top of the standings, could only muster 13th in his BMW, 1.2 seconds adrift.
Qualifying is scheduled to get underway at 15:40 BST.
Session results
| POS | NO | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 40 |  |
Árón TAYLOR-SMITH | Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 15 | 1:29.627 | – |
| 2 | 88 |  |
Mikey DOBLE | Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 18 | 1:29.822 | 0.195 |
| 3 | 1 | |
Ashley SUTTON | NAPA Racing UK | Ford Focus ST | 15 | 1:29.938 | 0.311 |
| 4 | 32 | |
Daniel ROWBOTTOM | NAPA Racing UK | Ford Focus ST | 18 | 1:29.968 | 0.341 |
| 5 | 80 | |
Tom INGRAM | BRISTOL STREET MOTORS | Hyundai i30 N Fastback | 17 | 1:29.981 | 0.354 |
| 6 | 16 | |
Aiden MOFFAT | LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ | Toyota Corolla GR Sport | 17 | 1:30.182 | 0.555 |
| 7 | 12 | |
Rob HUFF | TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK | Toyota Corolla GR Sport | 14 | 1:30.330 | 0.703 |
| 8 | 3 | |
Tom CHILTON | BRISTOL STREET MOTORS | Hyundai i30 N Fastback | 17 | 1:30.335 | 0.708 |
| 9 | 33 | |
Adam MORGAN | Team BMW | BMW 330e M Sport | 17 | 1:30.347 | 0.720 |
| 10 | 20 | |
Colin TURKINGTON | Team BMW | BMW 330e M Sport | 16 | 1:30.612 | 0.985 |
| 11 | 11 | |
Andrew WATSON | TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK | Toyota Corolla GR Sport | 14 | 1:30.759 | 1.132 |
| 12 | 27 | |
Dan CAMMISH | NAPA Racing UK | Ford Focus ST | 17 | 1:30.855 | 1.228 |
| 13 | 24 | |
Jake HILL | Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport | BMW 330e M Sport | 18 | 1:30.858 | 1.231 |
| 14 | 18 |  |
Daryl DELEON | Duckhams Racing with Bartercard | CUPRA Leon | 13 | 1:31.041 | 1.414 |
| 15 | 66 | |
Josh COOK | LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ | Toyota Corolla GR Sport | 9 | 1:31.076 | 1.449 |
| 16 | 222 | |
Chris SMILEY | Restart Racing | CUPRA Leon | 16 | 1:31.150 | 1.523 |
| 17 | 77 | |
Sam OSBORNE | NAPA Racing UK | Ford Focus ST | 16 | 1:31.154 | 1.527 |
| 18 | 29 | |
Scott SUMPTON | Restart Racing | CUPRA Leon | 17 | 1:31.284 | 1.657 |
| 19 | 45 | |
Dan ZELOS | BRISTOL STREET MOTORS | Hyundai i30 N Fastback | 14 | 1:31.423 | 1.796 |
| 20 | 22 | |
Nick HALSTEAD | BRISTOL STREET MOTORS | Hyundai i30 N Fastback | 15 | 1:32.708 | 3.081 |