Rory Butcher edges tight second session at Brands Hatch

Rory Butcher emerged with the fastest lap from the second BTCC free practice session at Brands Hatch, which set up an interesting battle for pole later this afternoon.

With light rain continuing to fall, the Speedworks driver emerged with the fastest lap in a session where the leading five drivers were covered by just 0.079s.

Butcher’s best lap put him just 0.005s ahead of the Ford Focus of Ash Sutton, with Bobby Thompson impressing in the Team HARD Cupra to slot into third – just 0.012s further back.

Jake Hill was best placed of the BMW drivers in fourth, with Ricky Collard in fifth the final driver within a tenth of the benchmark lap.

Colin Turkington was ‘best of the rest’ – albeit only 0.120s off the pace – with the Hyundais of Tom Chilton, Ronan Pearson and Tom Ingram following behind; the first pair setting their first representative laps of the weekend.

Dan Cammish rounded out the top ten, with the two-part qualifying session now set to take place at 15:25.