Colin Turkington remains out front in second practice

Colin Turkington remains the man to beat ahead of qualifying for the seventh round of the BTCC season at Croft having once again topped the times in second free practice.

Having led the way in FP1 earlier in the day, Turkington was the early pace-setter in the second 40 minute session at the wheel of his BMW 320si before being knocked back down the order but vaulted back to the top with two minutes to go with the fastest lap of the day to date.

A 1:21.768s lap was just outside the qualifying lap record held by Andrew Jordan and allowed the BMW man to just edge out the Honda of Josh Cook, which ended the session just 0.057s further back in second spot.

That saw Cook go well over half a second quicker than he had done in FP1 to lead the front-wheel drive challenge ahead of Jake Hill, who spent a large chunk of the session on top of the times in his older-spec Honda.

Adam Morgan was fourth fastest in the Ciceley Mercedes as he looks to continue the solid form he showed at Silverstone last time out, with Tom Ingram and Tom Oliphant rounding out the top six. That meant Ingram was able to show his hand for the first time this weekend after failing to set a time in the first session earlier in the day.

Ash Sutton was seventh in his ballast-heavy Infiniti ahead of an impressive Mike Bushell, although his session ended slightly early when he hit the tyres at turn one just after setting his fastest lap. Rory Butcher and Dan Cammish – after a diff change on his Honda – completed the top ten.

The top 18 drivers were covered by less than a second after the 40 minutes of running, with rain threatening ahead of qualifying later in the afternoon.