Hill quickest ahead of Chilton in opening practice

Jake Hill set the quickest lap during opening practice for the MB Motorsport squad as the second meeting of the 2020 British Touring Car Championship gets underway at Brands Hatch.

Despite qualifying a strong seventh last time out at Donington Park, Hill endured a torrid opening three races at the season opening round and failed to score a single point after his Honda Civic Type R was hit with technical gremlins.

However, the MB Motorsport driver put those Donington issues behind him during the opening 40-minute practice running to set the quickest time of FP1 by 0.139s ahead of BTC Racing's Tom Chilton in second.

Hill deposed Chilton of the top-spot towards the end of the session following a brief red flag period as the marshals recovered Bobby Thompson's stricken Audi S3.

Coming off the back of a double podium result at Donington Park, Rory Butcher was third fastest in the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST ahead of the Excler8 Motorsport Hyundai I30N of Senna Proctor in fourth.

The Hyundai has already proven to be a front-runner in this year's BTCC after Chris Smiley secured the I30N's first ever podium finish with second in race three during car's competition debut at Donington.

Behind the leading Hyundai, Honda's Dan Cammish narrowly outpaced the current early points leader and reigning champion Colin Turkington with the fifth fastest time ahead of the Team BMW runner in sixth.

Matt Neal was seventh in the sister factory Honda Civic Type R, while Adam Morgan, Josh Cook and Tom Ingram completed the remainder of the top-ten FP1 order in eighth, ninth and tenth.

Elsewhere, Ashley Sutton could only manage the 13th fastest time aboard the in-form Infiniti Q50.