Tom Ingram heads first free practice session at Snetterton
Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram set the pace in an incident-free first practice session at Snetterton, the British Touring Car Championship’s first competitive action since its summer break.
Ingram set his best lap of 1.56.003 in his Toyota Avensis around the halfway mark of the 40 minute session, pipping early leader Ash Sutton in his Team BMR Subaru Levorg.
Sutton was 0.102 behind Ingram, with Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan 0.414 off the pace in third in his Mercedes A-Class.
The West Surrey Racing duo of Andrew Jordan and Colin Turkington were next up in their BMW 125i M-Sport machines, with Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin, Eurotech Racing’s Jack Goff, BTC Racing’s Chris Smiley, Team BMR’s James Cole and AmD Tuning’s Ollie Jackson rounding out the top 10.
Aron Taylor-Smith was 26th for Triple Eight Racing in his first time back in the MG6 since his Croft accident, while rookie Brett Smith was two places further up in 24th, in his first meeting deputising for injured dad Jeff in the Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type-R.
Maximum Motorsport boss Stewart Lines was 31st and last in his Ford Focus on his return to the BTCC, filling the seat departed by MG-bound Josh Cook.
The factory Hondas of Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal and Jason Plato in the Team BMR Subaru didn’t attempt any timed laps until the closing stages, with Shedden ending up 20th, Neal 23rd and Plato 12th.
The second session of the day takes place at 12:10 BST.
