Tom Chilton leads the times in first practice at Silverstone

EXCELR8 Motorsport’s Tom Chilton ended the opening British Touring Car Championship practice session at Silverstone on top of the times, lapping just two hundredths of a second quicker than Jake Hill.

Lapping the National circuit in 57.437 seconds, Chilton was just a tenth of a second slower than the lap record set in 2020 of 57.349 seconds in dry and cloudy conditions in Northamptonshire, Chilton posting the best time in the final minutes.

Championship leader Hill was an impressive second quickest, despite having the least hybrid allocation of any driver in the field heading into qualifying later. Hill had been on top of the times for all of the session prior to Chilton’s late effort.

His WSR stablemate Colin Turkington was third, the Team BMW driver just a mere 0.018 seconds further back.

Andrew Watson was the leading Toyota driver in fourth, directly behind his Northern Irish compatriot, ahead of the third WSR-run BMW of Adam Morgan in fifth.

Mikey Doble, who sensationally claimed his maiden pole at the circuit last year, was sixth in the leading Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall, 0.377 seconds off the pace.

Speedworks Motorsport’s Josh Cook was seventh in the second-quickest Corolla, ahead of EXCELR8’s Tom Ingram in eighth.

The top ten was completed by Toyota’s Rob Huff and the second Power Maxed car of Árón Taylor-Smith.

Notably, not one of the NAPA Racing UK drivers broke into the top ten at the end, with 11^th fastest Dan Cammish the best of the Ford racers, some six tenths off the pace. Team-mate Ash Sutton was directly behind in 12^th, whilst Sam Osborne was 15^th and Daniel Rowbottom an uncharacteristic 17^th.

The top 14 drivers were covered by less than a second.

Second practice is scheduled to get underway at 12:05 BST.

Session results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	3		Tom CHILTON	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	19	57.437	–
2	24		Jake HILL	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	20	57.457	0.020
3	20		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	24	57.475	0.038
4	11		Andrew WATSON	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	21	57.614	0.177
5	33		Adam MORGAN	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	17	57.733	0.296
6	88		Mikey DOBLE	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	22	57.814	0.377
7	66		Josh COOK	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	19	57.817	0.380
8	80		Tom INGRAM	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	22	57.872	0.435
9	12		Rob HUFF	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	57.929	0.492
10	40		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	16	57.937	0.500
11	27		Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	19	58.049	0.612
12	1		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	22	58.093	0.656
13	45		Dan ZELOS	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	22	58.178	0.741
14	16		Aiden MOFFAT	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	21	58.212	0.775
15	77		Sam OSBORNE	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	23	58.487	1.050
16	18		Daryl DELEON	Duckhams Racing with Bartercard	CUPRA Leon	14	58.573	1.136
17	32		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	20	58.592	1.155
18	222		Chris SMILEY	Restart Racing	CUPRA Leon	18	58.681	1.244
19	29		Scott SUMPTON	Restart Racing	CUPRA Leon	19	58.859	1.422
20	22		Nick HALSTEAD	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	21	58.984	1.547