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British Touring Car Championship
Silverstone - Free Practice - 27/9/14

By MJP Media | 27 September 2014

All three title contenders are on form at Silverstone before the most important qualifying session of the season so far as Jason Plato and Sam Tordoff top the time sheets is free practice.

Jason Plato was fastest in the 1st free practice session

Today will see the most important sessions of the season to date as the three potential 2014 BTCC champions vie to gain the advantage of pole position for tomorrow's first race. Colin Turkington leads the championship by a massive 55 points and he could easily be crowned champion after tomorrow's racing if Jason Plato and Gordon Shedden don't finish in front of him in all three races.

MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save driver Jason Plato set the fastest time in free practice one with a time of 58.614s. Plato just edged out his main championship rivals to go fastest, with Honda Yuasa Racing's Gordon Shedden 0.081s behind in second and Colin Turkington third for eBay Motors 0.159s in arrears.

Sam Tordoff topped the time sheet in the 2nd free practice session

It was Jason Plato's MG team-mate Sam Tordoff who set the early pace in the dry but overcast Saturday morning session. He was the first driver to drop below the one minute mark around the short blast of the Silverstone National circuit, however as the times tumbled later on, the Yorkshire-man dropped down the order slightly to end up sixth. The Chrome Edition Restart Racing Volkswagen CCs also seemed well suited to the flat-out nature of Silverstone and Aron Smith, Alain Menu and Warren Scott were all inside the top ten in fourth, fifth and ninth respectively in the first session.

The second free practice session saw Jason Plato setting the pace early on ahead of Mat Jackson, Sam Tordoff and Matt Neal. Andrew Jordan then came to the party going second fastest while Luke Hines put a great lap in to go third. The next big improver was Tom Ingram who moved his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis up to 6th.

Championship leader Colin Turkington in the eBay Motors BMW

With 10 minutes to go, Colin Turkington finally got up to speed and put his eBay Motors BMW 2nd before Warren Scott caused a red flag period with his 'off' at Copse as the clock continued to count down. With 3.5 minutes left, the lights went green and there was a mad dash by all of the drivers to get in another flying lap. In the action that followed it was Sam Tordoff who set the fastest time for the session ahead of his team-mate Jason Plato. Third was Colin Turkington ahead of Aron Smith 4th and Mat Jackson a great 5th.

The two free practice sessions have confirmed the expectation that the MGs would be the cars to beat here at Silverstone, however the happiest man here will be Colin Turkington who was third fastest and bang on the their tails. This gives Turkington a great opportunity tomorrow with his BMW quick off the line. Qualifying is next and we will see if the MGs can maintain their dominance of the Silverstone National circuit.

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