eBay Motors dominated the opening Dunlop MSA British Touring Car free practice session at Knockhill today (Saturday 23rd August); as Colin Turkington topped the time sheets with a 51.870 second lap, some 0.6s under the current Knockhill qualifying lap record; whilst Rob Collard made it a one-two finish for the WSR Team on a track that tends to suit their BMW 125i M Sport NGTC Touring Cars.
Turkington blazes to FP1 time!
Jason Plato powered his MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save MG6 to third on the times after spending part of the session in the pit lane. Plato’s teammate, Sam Tordoff led the session in the opening stages before being overtaken by home hero, Gordon Shedden. Tordoff eventually ended the session in 6th place, just behind the Honda Yuasa Civic Tourer of Shedden in 4th, with defending Champion Andrew Jordan closing out the session in 5th.
Turkington though, took hold of the session with 17 minutes remaining on the clock, before improving his time on a further two occasions, to post the quickest of the day so far. Both Turkington and Shedden immediately headed towards the timing screens following the session and had this to say on KnockhillFM.
“When you’re out in the car, you have no idea how you’re doing. So you do your business and come in to see how it’s going.
“Qualifying will be difficult round here, with so many cars on track you get very limited running – when the opportunity for a fast lap arises – you really need to seize it.
“We know we were strong last year, but with the grid-penalty it is going to be a difficult task this weekend – l’ve been carb-loading this week in preparation for a big effort this weekend,” commented Turkington.
2012 British Touring Car Champion, Gordon Shedden said:
“Free practice is all bout scrubbing in tyres and getting everything sorted out for the day ahead.
“I was quite surprised by the way the Civic Tourer felt out there – there’s definitely some improvements to be made for free practice two – but it’s a decent start for us.”
Finishing Order:
Turkington, Collard, Plato, Shedden, Jordan, Tordoff, Menu, Forster, Austin and Neal rounding out the top ten.
The MSA Dunlop British Touring Car stars will be back in action at 12.10pm today for free practice two, before BTCC qualifying takes place at 15.05pm.
Tickets for today’s BTCC action can be purchased on the gate, whilst advanced tickets available Sunday’s raceday can be purchased online until midnight tonight via knockhill.com.
Check out the official BTCC website for full reaction to this mornings FP1 result.