Photo: PSP Images

Ollie Taylor fastest of all in Saturday morning warm up at Donington Park

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Championship challenger Ollie Taylor led the way in the first session of the weekend at a damp Donington Park circuit, with the Pyro Motorsport Honda driver throwing down the gauntlet as he takes the fight to WestCoast Racing Volkswagen’s Dan Lloyd for the inaugural TCR UK championship title this weekend.

11 cars took part in the session, following the last-minute withdrawal of Vukovic Motorsport’s Renault Mégane TCRs from this weekend’s season finale.

Points leader Dan Lloyd set the early pace in his WestCoast Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR in the damp session, setting an early benchmark time of 1:22.012.

It wasn’t until the half-way point when championship returnee Josh Price improved on this in his Pyro Motorsport-run Honda Civic Type R FK2 TCR, jumping to the top of the time sheets with a time of 1:21.863.

After that as the circuit continued to dry out, the top spot changed hands multiple times, with the Maximum Racing Cupra pair of Stewart Lines and Carl Swift, the DW Racing Vauxhall of Darelle Wilson and championship contender Ollie Taylor in the Pyro Honda Civic FK8 TCR all leading the way.

Taylor then threw in a storming lap of 1:16.429, two seconds clear of anyone else with three minutes to go.

Dan Lloyd followed this up with a late improvement to go second fastest, before both the Hondas of Josh Price and Ollie Taylor improved again as the chequered flag waved, with Taylor ending up a second clear of Price with a time of 1:14.550, with Lloyd 1.6 seconds behind.

Carl Swift was fourth in his Cupra TCR, with Sweden’s Andreas Bäckman fifth quickest in his WestCoast Racing Volkswagen.

The next timed session is official Free Practice at 13:50 BST (14:50 CEST).