Jason Plato hits the front in second Thruxton practice

Jason Plato moved to the head of the times in the second free practice session of the weekend at Thruxton, setting up an intriguing battle for pole for the latest rounds of the British Touring Car Championship season.

Plato would be the man to beat for much of the session at the wheel of his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra and eventually ended up setting a benchmark time of 1:16.614 with his penultimate lap to earn his place at the head of the pack.

It meant he ended up just ahead of Tom Oliphant, with the BMW driver having briefly moved into P1 himself before ultimately ending the session just 0.135s back in second.

Adam Morgan maintained his strong start to the weekend with third as the Ciceley Motorsport man looks to get his campaign back on track after a tough run of form, with his Mercedes heading a tightly-fought pack of drivers covered by little more than a tenth of a second.

Tom Chilton would head that group in fourth in his Motorbase-run Ford Focus ahead of Andrew Jordan, who became the first driver this weekend to fall foul of track limits as he had a lap removed in his BMW 330i M Sport.

Sam Tordoff rebounded from the upright failure that forced him to miss part of the opening session to finish up with the sixth best time in his older FK2 Honda Civic Type R, with Tom Ingram and Colin Turkington rounding out the top eight; the latter again showing solid pace despite the full ballast onboard his BMW.

Team HARD’s Jack Goff impressed in ninth in his Volkswagen CC, with the top ten completed by Ollie Jackson’s Focus.

Qualifying is up next at 15:25 local time.