Ahead of this afternoon's qualifying at Donington Park, ColinTurkington led practice for the BTCC season-opener. Report:
The Northern Irishman eclipsed the quickest time of the opening session set by Ash Sutton, which had been a gargantuan 0.476 seconds clear of closest pursuer Turkington and had seemed to send out an ominous warning that the three-time title winner and the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus squad will be tough to beat in 2023.
During a run of several laps in the early stages of the lunchtime session, Turkington and his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport chipped 0.024s off Sutton’s early-morning time, which was half a second beneath the qualifying lap record set by Jake Hill last season thanks to track resurfacing work.
“I’m enjoying driving the car,” said Turkington. “Donington has always been a good circuit for the 3-Series, and with the extra grip you can push a bit harder. “But there’s always more to find and that’s the tricky bit. I didn’t expect we’d be in the sevens [both Turkington and Sutton set laps below 1m08s], but I’m sure there’ll be some more people nudging in there in qualifying.”
Sutton was the only driver in the overall top 10 not to improve in the second session, although he did a 1m08.1s during a nine-lap ‘race’ run, while Turkington set a few times in that bracket.Although he was running slower, Sutton looked good for second in the lunchtime session until a raft of late improvements pushed him down to fifth.
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