Tom Ingram leads the way in Free Practice at Donington Park

Tom Ingram hit the ground running at Donington Park by heading the only British Touring Car Championship practice session of the weekend, pipping Josh Cook to top of the times by just two tenths of a second.

In line with the introduction of the new Qualifying Race – which will debut later this afternoon – drivers had just one single 40-minute session to dial in their cars around the Leicestershire venue; and it was the reigning champion that ultimately led the way.

At the wheel of his Hyundai i30 N, the EXCELR8 Motorsport driver set a best time of 1:07.842s to finish ahead of Speedworks Motorsport’s Cook while Dan Rowbottom was a further 0.028s in arrears to end up third.

Fourth was the Plato Racing Mercedes of Adam Morgan, narrowly ahead of Tom Chilton, who completed the top-five in his EXCELR8-prepared Hyundai.

Hot on their heels was the first of the Alliance Racing Ford Focus’ in the shape of Dan Cammish whilst Aiden Moffat led the line for Power Maxed Racing in the all-new Audi S3 Saloon.

Rounding out the top ten was four-time title winner Ash Sutton, West Surrey Racing’s Charles Rainford and the former Jack Sears Trophy winner, Mikey Doble.

Qualifying is scheduled to get underway at 14:00 with the grid splitting into two groups, each of which will be allotted 15 minutes for drivers to set their best time, which will in-turn decide the grid for the inaugural Qualifying Race.

The group with the fastest qualifying time will occupy the odd-numbered grid positions for the Qualifying Race, ordered by their respective qualifying times. The other group will occupy the even-numbered grid positions, also ordered by qualifying times.

Once qualifying has completed, the pit lane will open and cars will head to the grid for what is being titled as the ‘Race for Pole’. There, a 13 lap will ensue to decide the grid for Sunday’s opener, with half points on offer too.