Tom Ingram sets the pace in opening Croft practice
Tom Ingram headed an EXCELR8 Motorsport one-two in the opening British Touring Car Championship practice session at Croft Circuit, pipping team-mate Senna Proctor to the top of the times by a tenth of a second.
Commencing the second half of the season at the North Yorkshire circuit, Ingram set a best time of 1:20.514 around the 2.13-mile circuit – more than half a second quicker than the qualifying lap record.
Home hero Proctor had sat at the summit of the leaderboard in early stages however with a little over ten minutes to go, his Hyundai stablemate and former champion charged to the top of the times.
Championship leader Ash Sutton finished in third place whilst Mikey Doble powered his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra up to fourth in the closing moments of the session. Completing the top five was another Yorkshireman, Restart Racing’s Daniel Lloyd.
Alliance Racing’s Dan Cammish made it to Ford Focus machines inside the top six while the Chris Smiley and Tom Chilton reinforced the pace of the Hyundai i30 N Fastback by finishing seventh and eighth respectively.
Rounding out the top ten was the Speedworks Motorsport duo of James Dorlin and Aron Taylor-Smith.
Further down the order, Dan Rowbottom finished in 11th however his session was cut short after he was black flagged for exceeding track limits.
Elsewhere, Nick Halstead encountered trouble at the chicane as he suffered a broken rear left tow link.
Free Practice 2 is scheduled to get underway at 12:00.
