Collard fastest in interrupted first practice

Rob Collard finished on top the timesheets after an interrupted first free practice session at Brands Hatch. The West Surrey Racing driver was the only driver to set a time below 49s, with a fastest time of 48.932s.

The session was interrupted by two red flags. The first of these was for the Honda Yuasa Racing Civic of Gordon Shedden who stopped at the bottom of Paddock Hill bend with electrical problems. It wasn’t the only problem for Shedden who also slowed on track later in the session before he got going again. The Scottish driver finished the session in 21st, behind his team mate Matt Neal who finished 11th.

The second red flag was waved for the recovery of John Thorne’s Vauxhall Insignia after he made contact with the tyre wall at Paddock Hill Bend. There was a third incident at Paddock Hill Bend when Ollie Jackson ended up in the gravel after the chequered flag had been waved on the practice session.

After topping the timesheets for much of the session, Rob Austin finished second behind Collard with a gap of 0.197s. Collard’s team mate Tom Onslow-Cole finished behind the pair in third. All three WSR cars finished in the top ten with Nick Foster setting the ninth fastest time of the session.

Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan set the quickest time of the new NGTC Civics finishing the session in fourth. Matt Jackson, one of the earliest leaders in the session finished behind Jordan in fifth for Motorbase Performance.

After not running in Friday afternoon’s installation lap session at Brands Hatch the Triple Eight Race Engineering MGs of Andy Neate and Jason Plato were two of the first cars out in the session. They finished in 19th and 20th respectively.

The second practice session is due to take place at 12:40 UK time.