Tom Chilton left it until the final minute to set the fastest time of the first practice session here at Silverstone in his Global Touring Car Ford Focus.

Chilton’s time of 59.900 was good enough to beat title challenger, Mat Jackson by a mere 0.027 in a session which saw the top 18 drivers separated by just one second.

The new Ford Focus which Team Aon elected to use this year is starting to show the pace of the ‘older’ Ford Focus which they used last year. Chiltons time was 0.022 seconds slower than that of 2010 which was good enough for the front row of the grid.

Mat Jackson will be happy with the pace that he has shown in the first practice session of the weekend. Jackson, who has a slim chance of taking the overall drivers championship, will be going flat out this weekend and it was evident as he held the fastest time for much of the session before succumbing to Chilton late on.

Tom Onslow-Cole managed to finish third fastest and make it three Ford Focus’ in the top three ahead of championship leader, Matt Neal, who came home in fourth. Independent drivers championship leader, James Nash, was 5th fastest with a time which was only 0.163 which is an indication to how close the times were this morning.

Gordon Shedden was closely followed by Jason Plato with Andy Neate making it three Team Aon cars in the top ten with his 8th fastest time.

Andrew Jordan and Dave Newsham round out the top ten with 0.439 separating 1st to 10th.

Frank Wrathall, despite having a spin early on in the session finished as the fastest Next Generation Touring Car in 12th ahead of birthday boy, Tom Boardman in 13th.

Elsewhere, James Thompson, who is making his return in the championship with the Airwaves Racing team for the final round of the season could only manage 18th fastest in his ballast laden car as a result of him entering the season at a later stage.

Thorney Motorsport were set to take to the track for the first time this season but a clutch problem has halted the debut of the NGTC Vauxhall Insignia.

For a full classification click here.

Photo Credit: Mick O’Rourke

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.