BTCC Silverstone: Chilton leads the way in free practice

Veteran steals thunder from title contenders at 2024's penultimate round

Tom Chilton set the pace in both free practice sessions at Silverstone for the penultimate round of the British Touring Car Championship.

The extrovert Surrey veteran pushed his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback to the quickest time in the opening session, and his best from that early-morning running remained unbeaten for much of the lunchtime FP2.

Adam Morgan was the first to go under Chilton’s FP1 best aboard his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport, before team-mate Colin Turkington also eclipsed the previous standard to complete a 1-2 for the Sunbury squad.

But back came Chilton with an effort that placed him 0.186 seconds clear of Morgan, and his second-best time was also quicker than the red-headed Lancastrian could manage.

“I can’t physically remember the last time I was P1 in FP1 and FP2 in the BTCC – this championship is so competitive,” beamed Chilton, who saved a massively sideways moment at Copse Corner early in FP2.

“We’ve clearly got a great car, haven’t we? It feels fantastic out there.

“It all stems from some set-up changes we did in shakedown on Thursday, driving up and down a runway.

“It was just old-fashioned, on feel, and once we did that I said, ‘That feels as it should do, Barry [Plowman, engineer].’ I promise you, it’s so much better.”

The third of the WSR BMWs, that of championship leader Jake Hill, was second in the morning session, his long-standing best beaten only in the last five minutes by Chilton to the tune of 0.020s.

Hill, who will have to carry the heaviest turbo and hybrid power boost restrictions in qualifying and race one, was outside the top 10 in FP2, where he concentrated on long ‘race’ runs, but his FP1 best remained good enough for fourth overall.

With tyre choice free in qualifying between the weekend’s regular medium Goodyear and the option soft, most of the field did their bulk of the running on the former compound.

Last year’s underdog Silverstone polesitter Mikey Doble, however, had a carryover soft bolted onto his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra to go fourth in FP2, fifth overall across the two sessions.

Doble was followed by the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla pair of Josh Cook and Andrew Watson, with title contender Tom Ingram next up in his Excelr8 Hyundai.

It was Toyota-Hyundai to round out the top 10 too, in the respective forms of Rob Huff and BTCC newcomer Dan Zelos, who was on soft rubber.

The Alliance Racing Ford Focus ST squad were conspicuous by their absence from the upper echelons, with four-time champion Ash Sutton in the lower midfield, as was Dan Cammish, who sustained a puncture late in FP1.

Ten of the 20 drivers, including Turkington, Hill, Doble and Cook, were black-flagged at some point over the 70 minutes of running to sit in the sin bin for track-limits offences.

With alternate positions from FP1 determining the groups for the initial phase of qualifying, this means that of the leading championship quintet, Turkington, Ingram and Hill will run in the first group, with Sutton and Cammish in the second.