Ingram sets the pace in opening BTCC practice

Speedworks Motorsport's Tom Ingram has launched his 2018 British Touring Car Championship campaign in familiar fashion after setting the pace during opening practice at Brands Hatch.

As we've become accustomed to over the past few seasons, the Toyota Avensis driver ended the opening 40-minute session fastest of all after beating WIX Racing's Jack Goff by 0.056s around the Brands Hatch Indy layout.

With opening the part of the session taking place under slightly greasy conditions, Ingram eventually lowered the current benchmark with a 48.384s lap, over 0.4s shy of his own qualifying lap record set during the 2016 season.

As usual, not much could separate the 32-car field with just 0.8s covering the top-30 runners.

While Ingram and Goff occupied the top-two order, Motorbase Performance newcomer Tom Chilton followed closely behind in third position, just 0.001s shy of the leading Honda Civic Type-R runner in second.

Matt Simpson ended the session as the second fastest Honda runner with the fourth fastest time ahead of BTCC returnee Sam Tordoff in fifth.

Rookie Dan Cammish impressed on his BTCC practice debut after negotiating the 40-minute session as the top factory Honda in sixth ahead of AmD's Rory Butcher in seventh.

Cammish was over 0.2s quicker than his triple champion team mate Matt Neal, both showcasing the brand new Team Dynamics built Honda Civic Type-R.

Josh Cook marked his return to the Power Maxed TAG Racing squad by setting the eighth fastest time ahead of last year's championship runner up Colin Turkington in ninth.

Turkington ended FP1 as the only BMW to make the top-ten order, while Adam Morgan completed the remainder of the top-ten just behind the Ulsterman.

Elsewhere, Subaru's Ashley Sutton kicked off his campaign as the reigning champion 13th fastest aboard his BMR prepared Levorg GT. Jason Plato was 26th fastest.