Adam Morgan edges opening practice at Donington Park
Adam Morgan secured the early bragging rights ahead of the penultimate rounds of the BTCC season after topping the times in Free Practice one at Donington Park.
The Ciceley Motorsport driver edged out Senna Proctor’s Honda during the 40 minute session, which would be ended slightly early after an off for Team HARD driver Nicolas Hamilton. Hamilton’s team-mate Jack Goff had earlier caused a stoppage of his own when he put his Cupra off at the Old Hairpin.
Morgan would be complete fewer laps than a number of his rivals but a flyer of 1:09.840 was good enough to beat Proctor by just 0.003s, with another BTC Racing Honda close behind as Josh Cook went third fastest; 0.099s down on Morgan’s benchmark.
That meant Cook was the best placed of the main championship contenders as he looks to try and reclaim the ground he lost after his exclusion from race two at Silverstone.
Double Silverstone winner Rory Butcher continued his solid form in the Toyota to go fourth fastest with Sam Smelt only a tenth of a second behind, with the top six then completed by Gordon Shedden’s Dynamics-run Civic Type R.
Chris Smiley was seventh ahead of points leader Ash Sutton, with the Infiniti driver only 0.038s ahead of Tom Ingram – who is once again his closest rival in the points having moved back up to second last time out.
Aron Taylor-Smith rounded out the top ten to give Team HARD some reason to cheer.
Of the other main title contenders, Jake Hill was eleventh in his Ford Focus, with Colin Turkington in 17th spot in the BMW.
