Andrew Jordan edges opening practice at Croft

Andrew Jordan produced the quickest lap of a record-breaking opening practice session of the weekend at Croft ahead of the fourth meeting of the BTCC season.

Resurfacing work over the winter was expected to result in quicker lap times and so it proved in the first session of the weekend, with the top 22 drivers managing to break Colin Turkington’s qualifying lap record and all 29 drivers to appear on track dipping below the Northern Irishman’s race record.

Jordan – a winner three times this season already – would leave it late in the session to secure his place in P1, setting a best time of 1:22.039 late on in his BMW 330i M Sport to edge Ash Sutton out of top spot.

The Pirtek Racing-backed man would set two laps that would have been good enough to head the times, even though Sutton was only 0.085s behind in the first of the Subaru Levorgs. Sutton would end up with the same time as the fastest front-wheel drive car, as Sam Tordoff put his AmD-run Honda Civic into third with his final lap of the session.

Points leader Colin Turkington was two-tenths of a second off the pace in his BMW in fourth ahead of team-mate Tom Oliphant, with joint points leader Rory Butcher rounding out the top six despite the additional weight on his Honda.

The newer FK8 Hondas of Matt Neal and Chris Smiley followed behind, with the top ten completed by Tom Ingram and Dan Cammish.

Showing how close the action is expected to be across the weekend, the 18 drivers were covered by less than a second.