Rob Collard to the fore in second session

Rob Collard set the fastest time in free practice two at Croft, in an entertaining session that saw the timesheets altering minute-by-minute. With the North Yorkshire circuit damp at the beginning of the 40-minute session, a dry line soon emerged, resulting in plenty of on track action and a surprising leader board with both Jason Plato and Matt Neal outside the top-20.

Having ended the morning’s first practice session in second behind Alex MacDowall, Collard continued to enjoy an excellent start to the Croft weekend, topping the times by 0.223 from Honda’s Gordon Shedden.

In contrast the day’s opening session, Chevrolet had a torrid second practice, with MacDowall and Plato propping up the timesheets, with the latter not even setting a timed lap.

One place ahead of the two RML machines was Neal, with the Championship leader almost 6.5 seconds off the pace at the front.

Tom Boardman set the early pace in the session, before a dry line began emerging resulting in a mass switch to slicks and the predictable changes to the leader board as the circuit got quicker with each tour.

Practice was red flagged after Frank Wrathall lost his windscreen after a bumpy run over the grass and kerbs, leaving his car sans windscreen on the exit of the chicane.

With the session stopped it looked poised for an even more surprising result, with Boardman leading Tom Onslow-Cole and Rob Austin, before the two Fords of Tom Chilton and Mat Jackson.

But as the circuit continued to dry the times continued to improve with Collard and Shedden both gaining the advantage of Boardman for the session’s 1-2-3. Behind them came Jackson, with James Nash in fifth over one second in arrears.

Andrew Jordan took sixth ahead of a highly impressive seventh for the Rob Austin Racing Audi, before Dave Newsham, Onslow-Cole and Chilton rounded out the top ten.

BTCC qualifying from Croft gets underway at 15.05 GMT