New lap record for Jason Plato in first Silverstone practice
Triple Eight MG’s Jason Plato set a new lap record on the way to topping the times in the first free practice session at Silverstone.
Plato’s time of 58.498 was 0.219s faster than his own qualifying lap record from last season, with Speedworks Motorsport’s Dave Newsham also under the lap record in second.
Reigning champion Gordon Shedden was third for Honda Racing Team, ahead of Dynojet’s Frank Wrathall and Motorbase Performance’s Tom Onslow-Cole, who jumped up into the top five in the final minute of the session.
The top 10 was completed by Andrew Jordan, Matt Neal, Sam Tordoff, Colin Turkington and Adam Morgan.
In the depleted Jack Sears Trophy class, champion Lea Wood was just ahead of Liam Griffin in 24th, in his JWT Performance Vauxhall Vectra.
Sixteen cars were within one second of Plato’s time, while all but four of the 26-car field clocked a lap under the one minute mark.
Propping up the field was the returning Aidan Moffat, the 16-year-old who is driving the Tony Gilham Racing Volkswagen CC this weekend.
Shedden, Adam Morgan and Aron Smith were all black flagged during the session for not respecting track limits, but were allowed to continue.
The second free practice session gets under way at 12:15 BST.
