Gordon Shedden paces FP1 at Brands Hatch

Gordon Shedden topped the times for Honda as the BTCC field hit the track for the opening practice session of the weekend at Brands Hatch.

The Team Dynamics driver left it until the closing moments of the session to produce his fastest lap, with a best time of 48.850s being set on his penultimate lap. The Scot had been one of the last drivers to set a timed lap in the session but ultimately edged the BMW of Tom Oliphant out of top spot.

Oliphant had held P1 for much of the session but would fall just 0.019s shy of leading the pack, with the second Dynamics Honda in the hands of Dan Rowbottom taking third.

Rowbottom, like Shedden, was amongst the last drivers to set a timed lap and would end up only 0.004s behind Oliphant, with Tom Ingram taking fourth spot in his Hyundai having been at the sharp end of the times throughout despite the ballast on his EXCELR8-run i30 Fastback N.

Defending champion Ash Sutton was a solid fifth in the Infiniti despite also carrying plenty of success ballast, with Aron Taylor-Smith producing his most impressive session of the season to date in the Team HARD Cupra.

The Irish driver was inside the top ten throughout and set a best time that was only 0.005s down on Sutton and just ahead of the BMW of Colin Turkington.

Josh Cook – the early pacesetter – took eighth, with the top ten completed by Jake Hill and Jason Plato, the latter hoping to rebound from a tough weekend at Snetterton last time out.

Showing how competitive this weekend is likely to be, 28 of the 29 drivers were able to lap within a second of Shedden’s benchmark time, with the returning Andy Neate the only driver not to make it within a second.