Tom Chilton left it late to top the timesheets in the first practice session of the day. The Team Aon driver, got his LPG powered Ford Focus round the 1.64 mile Northamptonshire circuit in 1m:01.084 seconds.

Chilton set the time with just a couple of minutes of the session remaining to demote long-time pace setter Andy Jordan to second.

Mat Jackson was third for Airwaves BMW, an encouraging sign that the car’s one lap pace is now on a par with that of the front wheel drive cars. This was backed up by Rob Collard, who was sixth fastest in the West Surrey Racing prepared BMW. He separated the two championship protagonists; Jason Plato and Matt Neal, with the former getting the better of the latter.

There were impressive performances also from Tom Boardman and David Pinkney who ended the session ninth and tenth respectively.

Phil Glew could only manage 16th fastest with his time of 1:02.007 in his NGTC-turbocharged SEAT Leon in his return to the BTCC after the first round at Thruxton.

For full standings, see here: http://www.tsl-timing.com/toca/2010/103303trg.pdf

Photo credit: Pete Mainey

Tom Surgay is the Porsche Carrera Cup GB correspondant for 2011. Tom's currently studying English Language with Journalism at Huddersfield University. You can contact him at tom@btcccrazy.co.uk or on twitter @tsurgay.