Tordoff tops Donington BTCC practice

Sam Tordoff led the British Touring Car pack during free practice at Donington Park.

Aron Smith's BMR VW Passat set the pace in the first session, recording two times faster than Gordon Shedden's Honda Civic Tourer in second.

Smith then dipped under the 1m10s barrier with a 1m09.874s in the second session. That compares favourably with Shedden's 2013 pole time of 1m10.074s.

But Tordoff's Triple Eight MG6 then went even quicker, first recording a 1m09.794s, then leaving the benchmark at 1m09.684s in the final 10 minutes.

Smith's double BTCC champion team-mate Alain Menu failed to match the Irishman in either session, but ended up third quickest with 1m10.038s in FP2.

Jason Plato made it two MGs in the top four, while Adam Morgan's Mercedes improved in the final moments of FP2 to go fifth with 1m10.188s.

After being second fastest in FP1, Shedden only improved by 0.005s later and ended up sixth.

Championship leader Andrew Jordan, who will have to carry 45kg of success ballast in qualifying and race one, was seventh with 1m10.242s in his Eurotech Civic.

Colin Turkington was pleased with his WSR BMW in FP1. He didn't improve in FP2, but his morning effort of 1m10.258s was good enough for third.

Former British F3 champion Marc Hynes showed much improvement over his Brands Hatch form to go eighth fastest.

Fabrizio Giovanardi and Matt Neal claimed ninth and 12th respectively, meaning that all seven of the BTCC champions in the field were in the top 12.

A number of cars appeared to be marginal when it came to the new UK track limits, which could result in penalties when it comes to qualifying.

Several drivers were warned and the Audi A4s of Rob Austin and Hunter Abbott were black-flagged.

Originally on Autosport.com