Tom Chilton tops opening BTCC practice at Silverstone

Tom Chilton kicked off the British Touring Car Championship’s penultimate event of the season at Silverstone on the front foot by topping the times in Free Practice 1.

In dry conditions, the EXCELR8 Motorsport driver finished within a tenth of a second of the qualifying lap record around the National circuit after powering his way to the summit late in the session.

Championship leader Jake Hill had led the way for a majority of practice and finished second, despite having been issued a black flag for exceeding track limits one too many times.

Four-time series champion Colin Turkington ensured two BMWs occupied the top three places while Andrew Watson and Adam Morgan completed the top five.

Power Maxed Racing’s Mikey Doble was another to have session cut short as he too was issued a black flag; prior to that he hustled his Vauxhall Astra to sixth on the timesheets.

Rounding out the top ten was title contenders Josh Cook and Tom Ingram, as well as Rob Huff and Aron Taylor Smith – the latter the third driver that was black flagged.

Free Practice 2 is scheduled to get underway at 12:05.