Colin Turkington hits the front in second practice

Colin Turkington led the pack in a more subdued second BTCC free practice session at Rockingham, although it was a session to forget for others in the Team BMR garage.

The Northern Irishman became the first driver to dip below the 1min 23secs mark at the wheel of his Subaru Levorg as he secured his place at the head of the field, with his time of 1min 22.914secs being good enough to once again deny Tom Ingram top spot.

As in the earlier first practice session, the Speedworks driver was forced to settle for second place despite improving on his lap time from Saturday morning, with an improved showing from the two Team Dynamics run Hondas allowing Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden to slot into fourth and fifth.

Rob Austin, who has previously enjoyed some of his best results at Rockingham in the past, maintained the impressive recent performance of the Handy Motorsports Toyota Avensis by slotting into fifth, with the top six being completed by FP1 pace setter Andrew Jordan; who would lap four tenths of a second slower than he had done earlier in the day.

Whilst Turkington was given reason to smile out front, it was a tougher session for team-mate Jason Plato, who was forced to park in the pits after just four laps with an oil leak caused by hitting a kerb, whilst James Cole failed to even set a time with a boost issue on his car.

Elsewhere, points leader Sam Tordoff was down in 21st place as he worked to make up for the time lost as a result of his spin into the gravel in FP1 but admitted that the WSR-run BMWs were struggling for outright performance going into qualifying later today.

Rob Collard was the only one of the three to make it into the top ten.