Turkington takes Knockhill record

Team RAC’s decision to switch to bio-ethanol fuel has clearly paid dividends with driver Colin Turkington having set the pace in this morning’s first Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship practice at Knockhill with the BTCC’s fastest ever lap around the twisty Scottish circuit.

On a damp but drying track, Turkington was the only driver to break the 54s barrier with a time of 53.783s in his MG ZS. That is more than a second faster than his own race lap record from two years and around 0.5s inside Andy Priaulx’s qualifying lap record of 2002.

This was not only a dream track debut for Team RAC’s bio-ethanol-fuelled car but also hugely impressive in its own right – Turkington’s car is carrying 36kgs of success ballast by dint of his lying second in the standings. And data showed that had he strung his best two sector times together on one lap, there was potential for an even better time of 53.688s.

By contrast, championship leader Matt Neal, his Team Halfords Honda Integra carrying maximum success ballast of 45kgs, was back in tenth and some 8/10ths of a second slower than Turkington.

Second fastest was Jason Plato in his SEAT Leon (laden with third-placed ballast of 27kgs) on a time of 54.082s, with Team Halfords’ Gareth Howell third on 54.255s. Howell’s car will this weekend carry 36kgs of ‘late-comer’ ballast after he joined the series only at the previous meeting.

Meanwhile, the next four drivers were covered by just 0.057s – Vauxhall team-mates Gavin Smith and Fabrizio Giovanardi were fourth and fifth in their Astra Sport Hatches, Team Halfords’ Gordon Shedden, the home favourite here, was sixth and SEAT’s Darren Turner, again standing in for World Touring Car Championship-tied James Thompson, seventh.

There were minor dramas elsewhere: Mark Proctor, driving his Fast-Tec Honda Civic, was sporting a black eye after a torque wrench caught him in the face mid-week; Vauxhall’s Tom Chilton and Richard Marsh, in Team Farecla’s Peugeot, both suffered brief excursions off the track; Jason Hughes’ Kartworld MG needed repairs after its exhaust collapsed on its out lap; Adam Jones’ session ended early after his Xero Performance Lexus was damaged when it struck a tyre marker.