Jason Plato heads opening practice at Silverstone

Jason Plato posted the quickest time as the British Touring Car Championship field hit the track for the first time this weekend at Silverstone ahead of the penultimate rounds of the 2019 season.

The Power Maxed Racing driver, who goes into the weekend still chasing his first win of the campaign, left it late in the session to secure his place at the head of the times, with a lap of 57.731s allowing him to edge title hopeful Dan Cammish out of top spot.

Cammish would end up just 0.046s down in second place at the wheel of his Honda Civic Type R as he looks to try and strengthen his bid for a first championship title, with the Team Dynamics racer just eleven points down on current leader Colin Turkington in the standings.

There was a surprise in third, with Ash Sutton jumping up the order on his final flying lap at the wheel of BMR’s Subaru Levorg – a car not known for straight-line speed – with Matt Neal slotting into fourth as he prepares for a weekend of playing rear-gunner to Cammish.

Andrew Jordan was fifth quickest in the first of the BMWs and seven places ahead of Turkington, who was unable to break into the top ten with maximum ballast on his car.

Despite technical gremlins on his Toyota Corolla, which resulted in him stopping on track late on, Tom Ingram was sixth quickest ahead of Rob Collard and Adam Morgan, with Senna Proctor in ninth being the last driver to lap below Mat Jackson’s qualifying lap record.

Tom Oliphant’s BMW then rounded out the top ten.

Aside from Ingram, there was a brief red flag period after Mark Blundell’s Audi stopped on track and required recovery, whilst Matt Simpson was black-flagged having previously been one of a number of drivers warned for exceeding track limits.

FP2 is scheduled for 12:05 local time.