Daryl DeLeon tops final practice session of the season
West Surrey Racing’s Daryl DeLeon topped the times in the final British Touring Car Championship practice session of the season at Brands Hatch as the top-four were covered by less than a tenth of a second.
The Anglo-Filipino driver came oh-so close to bettering the existing qualifying lap record around the 2.43-mile Grand Prix circuit in his BMW 330i M Sport, with his time of 1:29.247s sending him to the summit of the leaderboard late on.
Speedworks Motorsport’s Josh Cook was another late improver as he hustled his Toyota Corolla GR Sport machine to second place, just 0.053s shy of DeLeon’s benchmark. Completing the top four was the second BMW of Charles Rainford and lead Hyundai of Adam Morgan.
EXCLER8 Motorsport’s Senna Proctor underlined the pace of the Hyundai i30 N by setting the fifth fastest time ahead Alliance Racing’s Dan Rowbottom, who was the only Ford Focus driver to feature inside the top ten.
Championship leader Tom Ingram once again spent a majority of the session working through his programme however a late switch to the optimum soft tyre saw him elevate up the order to finish in seventh.
Rounding out the top ten was leading Independent Chris Smiley, West Surrey Racing’s Aiden Moffat and Tom Chilton.
Four-time champion and the only driver that can stop Ingram from lifting the coveted BTCC crown, Ash Sutton, could only manage 18th – one place behind his team-mate Dan Cammish.
The final qualifying session of the season from Brands Hatch is scheduled to get underway at 15:15.
