BTCC Silverstone: Morgan heads BMW 1-2-3 in practice

Morgan has been on form all day aboard his Ciceley Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport – he was a pacesetter in the opening session before a trackrod bracket became detached from the rear frame.

Tom Ingram ended up supreme in that early running, his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N recording no fewer than four laps quicker than the best anyone else could manage, and ending up atop the order by 0.104 seconds.

Times came down in the later session – albeit not for Ingram – and it was Morgan who led a BMW 1-2-3.

A late improvement from Stephen Jelley hoisted his West Surrey Racing-machine into second position, 0.014s adrift of Morgan, while the second Ciceley BMW of BTCC rookie George Gamble was third.

“Coming here, we made some changes to the front end of the car and it just seems to have gelled,” said Morgan.

“Whether it’ll work everywhere I don’t know, but this is a relatively high-grip circuit. It’s always nice when you push a car out at a track and it seems to work, and this is one of those days.

“It’s given me a lot of confidence to push on, and even in FP1 when the tyres were 100km-plus old the balance was good.”

Stephen Jelley, Team BMW BMW 330e M Sport (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Ingram’s early-morning best was good for fourth overall across the two sessions on a circuit where he always shines, but he was down in 14th spot in the later period.

Instead, the front-wheel-drive opposition to the BMW armada became the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corollas, which had survived a tricky opening session.

Ricky Collard was second in that period, then fourth later on to go fifth overall. It’s been an impressive day for the BTCC rookie, but he ended the first session in a red-flag-inducing clash with Team Hard Cupra driver Will Powell on the approach to Becketts, which also caught out Dexter Patterson, who had to take his Infiniti off track to avoid the opaque cloud of tyre smoke.

Collard alighted from the Toyota and stalked straight over to the Cupra to remonstrate furiously with Powell, but continued on good form in the second session.

Team-mate Rory Butcher, meanwhile, was fourth, before going sixth later on to end up seventh overall.

In between the two Toyotas was the second WSR BMW of Jake Hill, with the third of the WSR squad, championship leader Colin Turkington, immediately behind in eighth overall.

Jason Plato was quick early on to go third fastest in his BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R, the time standing for ninth overall, while Bobby Thompson (Team Hard Cupra) completed the top 10.

Apart from Turkington, Hill and Ingram, the other member of the main title-contending quartet, Ash Sutton, was a lowly 18th in FP1 in his Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus, and slipped even further to 23rd later on.

BTCC Silverstone FP1 result:

Cla	Driver	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Tom Ingram	57.675
2	Ricky Collard	57.779	0.104	0.104
3	Jason Plato	57.799	0.124	0.020
4	Rory Butcher	57.801	0.126	0.002
5	Colin Turkington	57.857	0.182	0.056
6	Adam Morgan	57.871	0.196	0.014
7	Gordon Shedden	57.890	0.215	0.019
8	Daniel Lloyd	57.959	0.284	0.069
9	Aron Taylor-Smith	57.964	0.289	0.005
10	Jake Hill	57.966	0.291	0.002
11	Dan Cammish	57.986	0.311	0.020
12	Ash Hand	58.013	0.338	0.027
13	Tom Chilton	58.032	0.357	0.019
14	Bobby Thompson	58.039	0.364	0.007
15	George Gamble	58.042	0.367	0.003
16	Daniel Rowbottom	58.082	0.407	0.040
17	Aiden Moffat	58.085	0.410	0.003
18	Ashley Sutton	58.113	0.438	0.028
19	Stephen Jelley	58.120	0.445	0.007
20	Josh Cook	58.160	0.485	0.040
21	Michael Crees	58.244	0.569	0.084
22	Nicolas Hamilton	58.434	0.759	0.190
23	Dexter Patterson	58.503	0.828	0.069
24	Jade Edwards	58.542	0.867	0.039
25	Jack Butel	58.684	1.009	0.142
26	Ollie Jackson	58.857	1.182	0.173
27	Sam Osborne	58.860	1.185	0.003
28	Rick Parfitt Jr.	59.525	1.850	0.665
29	Will Powell
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BTCC Silverstone FP2 result:

Cla	Driver	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Adam Morgan	57.601
2	Stephen Jelley	57.615	0.014	0.014
3	George Gamble	57.648	0.047	0.033
4	Ricky Collard	57.681	0.080	0.033
5	Jake Hill	57.747	0.146	0.066
6	Rory Butcher	57.768	0.167	0.021
7	Colin Turkington	57.792	0.191	0.024
8	Bobby Thompson	57.841	0.240	0.049
9	Gordon Shedden	57.882	0.281	0.041
10	Aiden Moffat	57.899	0.298	0.017
11	Ash Hand	57.911	0.310	0.012
12	Daniel Rowbottom	57.965	0.364	0.054
13	Daniel Lloyd	57.972	0.371	0.007
14	Tom Ingram	57.993	0.392	0.021
15	Tom Chilton	58.017	0.416	0.024
16	Jason Plato	58.096	0.495	0.079
17	Dan Cammish	58.107	0.506	0.011
18	Michael Crees	58.120	0.519	0.013
19	Josh Cook	58.150	0.549	0.030
20	Dexter Patterson	58.168	0.567	0.018
21	Aron Taylor-Smith	58.175	0.574	0.007
22	Jack Butel	58.356	0.755	0.181
23	Ashley Sutton	58.368	0.767	0.012
24	Ollie Jackson	58.423	0.822	0.055
25	Nicolas Hamilton	58.427	0.826	0.004
26	Sam Osborne	58.740	1.139	0.313
27	Rick Parfitt Jr.	59.786	2.185	1.046
28	Jade Edwards
View full results