Photo: PSP Images

Tom Ingram tops opening Brands Hatch practice

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Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram headed a topsy-turvy first free practice session of the year at Brands Hatch, with a string of fastest laps in the final minutes.

Driving a new Toyota Avensis built over the winter, Ingram improved his fastest time twice to end on a 50.665, 0.512 faster than Honda Racing Team’s Matt Neal in the new Civic Type-R.

A damp track gradually dried throughout the 40 minutes, meaning there were a host of late improvers. Behind the top two in third was impressive debutant Josh Cook in the Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze, ahead of West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard and Cook’s team-mate Dave Newsham.

Andy Priaulx was sixth in the second WSR BMW 125i, with Aron Smith, Warren Scott, Hunter Abbott and an impressive Simon Belcher rounding out the top 10.

Team BMR’s Jason Plato was 11th after holding top spot for much of the session, with team-mate and reigning champion Colin Turkington in 13th. Triple Eight Racing’s Andrew Jordan was down in 20th after turbo failure limited him to just six laps, while Gordon Shedden was 26th and last in the second new Civic Type-R as he concentrated on scrubbing in tyres.

Derek Palmer clocked up 17 laps in the new Infiniti Q50 and was down in 24th, 8.445 seconds away from the ultimate pace.

Welch Motorsport’s Andy Wilmot was the only car not to set a time in the session, with his Proton Gen-2 remaining in the garage throughout.