Reigning champion Ash Sutton was pleasantly surprised to top the times in the opening British Touring Car Championship practice session at Brands Hatch.
Sutton set a lap of 1:31.090s to go a tenth faster than Andrew Jordan’s BMW, following a red-flag stoppage mid-session to recover Bobby Thompson’s Volkswagen.
Although Sutton acknowledged the time counts for little as it is only practice, he admitted he was not expecting to be immediately on the pace this weekend.
“It’s only FP1 and it’ll all change for sure, but it’s a good start,” Sutton told TouringCars.Net.
“I’ve got a good feel in the car – we didn’t get a full session then which was a bit of a shame – but we’ll see what happens in FP2 now.
“The car gave me the confidence, the Subaru Levorg had a good balance from the get go so I can’t complain.
“We’ll look into some changes now and see what we can do.”
Sutton was forced to pit midway through the session, opting to shortcut the GP loop to limp back to the pits at the end of the Cooper Straight, after smoke was seen exiting the front end of the car at Graham Hill Bend.
The issue was then diagnosed as an oil leak, which forced Sutton to end the session prematurely, but shouldn’t hamper his running for the remainder of the day.
“We had a slight oil leak in the engine bay, I said to the boys we may as well park it,” he explained.
“We’ve got a good feel for the car so there’s no point trying to rush and get it back out.
“It’s pretty much solved now already.”
The second free practice session is set to start at 12:05 BST.