Mat Jackson Continues Pace To Top Second Practice
Mat Jackson, who is still within a chance of the overall championship title this weekend, ended the second and final practice session this weekend as fastest out of a field of 29 drivers which saw a multitude of drivers disobeying the track limits.
Mat Jackson managed to improve on his time from free practice one by 0.3 seconds which was good enough to put him at the top of the timing sheet heading into the all important final qualifying session of the 2011 season.
Speaking after the session, Mat said, “Silverstone is always notoriously a close circuit. It’s the scene of my last pole position back in 2009 so hopefully we can match the performance of two years ago and if we can put it on pole then that would be great.”
“This is one of the least exciting circuits on the calendar but I absolutely love it. There’s just something about it that just suits my driving style.”
With ten minutes to go it was Dave Newsham who led the session after he set a blistering lap in the Special Tuning Racing SEAT Leon but he had to settle for second fastest by just 0.008 seconds.
The top two in the championship and team-mates, Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal, couldn’t be separated once again as they finished 3rd and 4th fastest in their turbocharged Honda Civics. Both drivers managed to improve from their performance in the morning to be one of nine drivers to dip under the 1 minute barrier compared to the two drivers that did so in the earlier session.
Tom Boardman made it two Special Tuning Racing drivers in the top ten ahead of the early morning pace-setter, Tom Chilton. Andy Neate proved that he has the pace to finish 8th fastest ahead of James Nash and Tom Onslow-Cole who rounded out the top ten.
Jason Plato could only manage a time that was worthy of 13th fastest as he failed to go faster than he did in free practice one and as a result was over half a second off the pace.
For full classification of free practice two, click here.
Photo Credit: Mick O’Rourke
James Mappin
