Ingram tops early running at Rockingham

Speedworks Motorsport's Tom Ingram has set the pace during the opening British Touring Car Championship practice session of the weekend at Rockingham.

The current championship leader took the honours in the opening session after producing a 1 minute 23.284s lap around the International layout of the Motor Speedway circuit.

Ingram was followed by the Alfa Romeo Giulietta of Rob Austin in second, who was just 0.048s shy of the leading Toyota Avensis' time in second position.

In keeping with the close time gaps, Motorbase Performance's Sam Tordoff completed the top-three order after setting the third fastest time, just 0.011s back from Austin in second.

BMW Pirtek Racing's Andrew Jordan was fourth quickest aboard his BMW 125i M Sport machine, while Adam Morgan completed the top-five order ahead of Team HARD's Mike Bushell in sixth.

AmD's Sam Smelt produced the surprise of the session after setting the seventh quickest time aboard his Audi S3, by far the BTCC rookie's best practice performance of the season so far.

Power Maxed Racing's Josh Cook set an almost identical time to that of Smelt in eighth position, marginally quicker than Tom Oliphant and Dan Lloyd in ninth and tenth.

Elsewhere, subbing in for his dad Rob at Team BMW, Ricky Collard enjoyed a clean debut practice session in the BTCC to end FP1 in 29th, just 1.6s off Ingram's front-running pace.

Collard Jr is filling for his father Rob, who has been advised to sit the next two BTCC meetings on medical grounds.