Andy Jordan continued the form he showed at Media day to top the times in the first practice session of the opening round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch.

The Pirtek Racing driver lapped the Indy layout in a best time of 48.798 seconds.

Defending champion Jason Plato was just 0.031 seconds off the pace in second in his Chevrolet Cruze.

Third fastest was Gordon Shedden in the Honda Civic and he was also less than a tenth of a second slower than Jordan. However, the session did not end well for the Scot who suffered a car failure on the way into Paddock Hill Bend and consequently slammed into the tyre barrier. He jumped out of the car seemingly uninjured and it will now be a question of whether the Honda mechanics can fix the car in time for qualifying.

Tom Boardman made it four different makes of car in the top four as he put in a surprisingly competitive performance in the Seat Leon, to edge out the second Honda of Matt Neal.

The second free practice session gets underway at 12:35.

For the full classification, see here: http://www.tsl-timing.com/toca/2011/111303trg.pdf

Photo Credit: Pete Mainey (http://www.psmmotorsportimages.co.uk)

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.