Aiden Moffat on top in close first practice session at Croft

Aiden Moffat was fastest in the first free practice session at the Croft circuit in his Mercedes A-Class, pipping Motorbase Performance’s Andrew Jordan in the final 30 seconds of the 40-minute session. Jordan who himself was just 77-thousdandths of a second ahead of West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff, with the top three seperated by just a tenth of a second.

Jordan’s best time of 1:25.064 in the Ford Focus ST, set just after ten minutes, had kept him on top of the time sheets for the majority of the last half of the session, while championship leader Tordoff, resplendent in the new livery on his BMW 125i M Sport, emerged as the closest competitor to Jordan, with Speedworks Toyota driver Tom Ingram next up, just a hundredth of a second further behind.

The times looked settled until the final minutes, with Adam Morgan one of the few drivers to improve his time and went fourth fastest in the Ciceley Racing Mercedes A-Class, which quickly became fifth when his team-mate Aiden Moffat went even faster, setting the best time of the session of 1:25.038 to topple Jordan from the top of the timing screen.

Colin Turkington was the fastest of the Team BMR Subaru Levorgs in sixth, with Gordon Shedden was the best placed of the Team Dynamics Honda drivers behind him in seventh.

Aron Smith finished the session eighth fastest in the Team BKR Volkswagen CC, with Martin Depper and Daniel Lloyd’s Eurotech Racing Honda Civics completing the top ten.

Championship stalwarts Jason Plato and Matt Neal were 12th and 13th in their Subaru and Honda respectively.

Two drivers were warned for exceeding the track limits at the North Yorkshire circuit. First Warren Scott in the Team BMR Subaru, as well as Brands and Thruxton pole-sitter Tom Ingram.

The next session is Free Practice 2 at 12:00 BST.