Sport   Other Sports   Touring Cars

British Touring Car Championship
Snetterton (300) - Free Practice - 2/8/14

By MJP Media | 2 August 2014

Alain Menu tops the time sheet in the first free practice session - Jason Plato smashes the lap record in the second.

Alain Menu topped the time sheet in the first practice session

Following its summer break, the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship returned to action today as the drivers took to the fabulous '300' circuit at Snetterton in Norfolk for the first of the two free practice sessions for the 6th meeting of the 2014 season.

Notable changes during the break include the technical partnership between Aiden Moffat's Laser Tools Racing and Ciceley Motorsport, the people behind Adam Morgan's Wix Racing Mercedes Benz A-Class. Elsewhere, the Chrome Edition Restart Racing Team announced that Jack Goff and Warren Scott would run Volkswagen CCs for the rest of the season, having run Vauxhall Insignias for the first five meetings. They join team-mates Aron Smith and Alain Menu who have run CCs since the start of the season.

Jack Goff impressed in his new Volkswagen CC

Overnight rain had left the circuit wet but drying rapidly as the cars took to the track for the first of the two free practices sessions. Robb Holland brought the session to a temporary halt half way through when his Rotek Racing Audi S3 had to be rescued from Riches. The session quickly resumed but ended five minutes early due to defending BTCC champion Andrew Jordan crashing his Pirtek Racing Honda Civic, also at Riches.

The move to an all Volkswagen CC squad by Chrome Edition Restart Racing was clearly vindicated with Alain Menu topping the time sheet with the only sub 2 minute lap time. Team-mate Jack Goff was 2nd in his brand new CC with the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis of Tom Ingram an impressive 3rd. Andrew Jordan ended the first session 4th fastest with former BTCC champion Gordon Shedden 5th in the Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Tourer. James Cole completed the top 6 places in his United Autosports Toyota Avensis.

Jason Plato smashed the Snetterton lap record

For the second free practice session the track had dried completely and the tumbling lap times reflected that. Andrew Jordan was unable to take part in the session as he had been taken to hospital as a precautionary measure following his accident in the first session. His Pirtek Racing team expect both Jordan and his Honda Civic to be fit to take part in the qualifying session latter today.

The undoubted star of the second session was Jason Plato in his MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save MG6. Early on in the session he beat the current Snetterton lap record held by team-mate Sam Tordoff, then went on to better it with each successive lap. He ended the session having knocked half a second off Tordoff's lap record. 2nd fastest was Colin Turkington in the eBay Motors BMW 125i M Sport, over 1.1 seconds behind. Adam Morgan was 3rd fastest for Wix Racing with Airwaves Racing's Mat Jackson 4th, Jack Goff 5th and Rob Collard 6th.

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media