Tom Chilton hits the front late on in second practice
Tom Chilton dipped under the current British Touring Car Championship qualifying lap record around the Donington Park GP circuit to top the times in second practice.
The EXCELR8 Motorsport had sat outside the top ten for much of the session but a best time of 1:33.129 in the closing minutes rocketed the Hyundai i30 N driver to the summit of the leaderboard.
Alliance Racing’s Ash Sutton had occupied first place having also set a late benchmark time however Chilton’s late improvement bumped him down to second place, narrowly ahead of his chief title rival and championship leader Tom Ingram.
West Surrey Racing’s Charles Rainford maintained the front-running form of the BMW to secure fourth place with Daniel Lloyd backing up his pace from earlier in the morning to occupy fifth.
Free practice one pace-setter Dan Rowbottom was sixth fastest ahead of Independent leader Chris Smiley, Alliance Racing’s Dan Cammish, Speedworks Motorsport’s Aron Taylor-Smith and Ford Focus ST ace Sam Osborne.
The session was briefly interrupted as the red flag was waved to allow marshals to sweep up gravel at the chicane after it was dragged onto the circuit by Chilton.
Qualifying is scheduled to get underway at the East Midlands circuit at 15:25.
