Jake Hill opens up top at Brands Hatch

Jake Hill made the ideal start to the weekend at Brands Hatch by topping first practice ahead of the second rounds of the BTCC season.

Hill, who failed to score at Donington Park after a myriad of engine issues, was on the pace throughout the 40 minute session in his MB Motorsport-run Honda Civic Type R and posted a quickest lap of 1:31.729s in warm weather conditions to edge the newer FK8 Civic of Tom Chilton off the top of the times.

Chilton had hit the front mid-way through the session ahead of early pace-setter Rory Butcher, who ended up third quickest for Motorbase with the EXCELR8-run Hyundai again showing impressive speed with Senna Proctor fourth fastest.

Like Hill, Proctor endured a tough start to the season at Donington Park, and goes into the weekend seeking to also open his account for the year.

Dan Cammish was a solid fifth fastest ahead of points leader Colin Turkington, who put his BMW into sixth despite the maximum ballast on his BMW 330i M Sport.

Matt Neal and Adam Morgan followed behind having lapped within half a second of the fastest time, with the top ten rounded out by Josh Cook and Tom Ingram.

Ash Sutton’s Infiniti, the quickest car across race day at Donington, wound up 13th quickest.

The session was briefly halted when Bobby Thompson’s Audi took a trip into the gravel at Druids, with the car able to recover to the pits without major damage. Nic Hamilton’s Volkswagen would also stop on track mid-way through the session.