Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Senna Proctor heads Oulton Park test times

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Senna Proctor emerged with the quickest time after the British Touring Car Championship field headed for Oulton Park for the two-day Goodyear tyre test.

The Cheshire circuit played host to the test ahead of round four of the season at the same venue later this month, with the majority of the field taking to the track at some point over the course of the session, with Jack Butel and Nicolas Hamilton being the only two of the full-season entrants not to appear on track.

Both days of the test would be affected by the weather with only limited dry running available, with the quickest times – in the main – coming on Tuesday afternoon.

That was when Proctor was able to set the best time of the test for BTC Racing as he took his Honda Civic Type R to a best time of 1:25.656s, which ensured he topped the times by less than a tenth of a second from the similar Team Dynamics-run car of Gordon Shedden.

Shedden would lead the way on the second afternoon with a time that was fractionally slower than the Tuesday best, with the leading pair having a gap of more than half a second over Dan Rowbottom, who made it a Honda 1-2-3 on the times.

Jason Plato would wind up fourth overall by virtue of his Wednesday time, with the Power Maxed Racing driver one of the few racers to improve on day two, with the Cupra of Jack Goff and Jake Hill’s Ford Focus following close behind. Hill was quickest in the wet on Wednesday morning.

Chris Smiley wound up with the seventh best time as the leading Hyundai having run only on Tuesday, with the top ten completed by Ash Sutton, Dan Lloyd and Sam Smelt.

Tom Ingram had paced the wet opening session on Tuesday before being forced to miss most of the afternoon after running in to mechanical problems but returned to the track to complete limited running in the dry conditions on Wednesday.

With Glynn Geddie having left Team HARD, James Gornall was drafted in for the test and having gone 17th quickest on day one, he improved in the brief dry running on Wednesday to break into the top ten, although it remains to be seen if he will now be given the chance to race the Cupra later in the season.

The two-day test also saw the TOCA Hybrid test car in action with former champion Andrew Jordan at the wheel as development work on the new system continues. Jordan would end up 21st on the times on Wednesday but was twelfth on day two, lapping within a second of Shedden’s Wednesday time.