Jason Plato again set the pace, this time in a dry second Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship practice session at Oulton Park which was cut short when Ollie Jackson crashed.
Points leader Plato, his KX Momentum Racing MG6 carrying the maximum 45kgs of success ballast, set a scintillating time of 1m27.426s – inside Gordon Shedden’s race lap record and only a few tenths shy of his own qualifying record around Oulton’s Island circuit.
Next up were three Honda Civics headed by Matt Neal’s Yuasa Racing Team example, the reigning Champion just 0.014s slower than Plato with a time of 1m27.440s. Pirtek Racing’s Andrew Jordan was third ahead of Neal’s team-mate Gordon Shedden in fourth. Fifth, the last man to get within a second of Plato, was Robert Collard in his eBay Motors BMW.
This, though, might not have been the order had the session run its full course. Most drivers were on track looking for an improvement when the session was ended early after Jackson shunted his AmD Tuning.com VW Golf at the Cascades corner and damaged the safety barriers.
"I probably hit them about 50mph," he told btcc.net. "The front brakes failed so I pushed harder on the pedal, that locked the rears and I was off. The damage is surprisingly light but the big worry is not knowing what caused the failure in the first place."
Bizarrely, he was the second Jackson to come a cropper at the same bend after Mat Jackson damaged his Redstone Racing Ford Focus with an off there early in the session, this causing a brief red flag stoppage while his car was recovered. "My fault, I just lost the back on cold rear tyres," explained the driver. But with no dry running going into this afternoon’s qualifying session, the incident will be a bitter set-back for title contender Jackson who will celebrate his 31st birthday tomorrow…
MG’s Andy Neate, Speedworks Toyota driver Adam Morgan, Pirtek’s Jeff Smith and Redstone’s Aron Smith filled sixth to ninth positions. Completing the top ten was Frank Wrathall in his Dynojet Toyota Avensis. Ollie Jackson’s best lap time prior to his crash left him 11th overall ahead of BTCC debutant Will Bratt, 12th in his Rob Austin Racing Audi A4.
Neate also had to rely on a time set before damaging his car. He said: "We're still trying to figure out what happened. I was on the brakes as normal for the hairpin but the car simply turned left and into the barriers. It's damaged the front, side and rear and has left the team with a bit of a job on to fix it in time for qualifying."
Meanwhile the early end to the session prevented a number of established front-running names from ever getting into their stride, among them ES Racing.com’s Dave Newsham in 14th and eBay Motors’ Tom Onslow-Cole in 18th.
