The Northern Irishman eclipsed the quickest time of the opening session set by Ash Sutton, which had been a gargantuan 0.476 seconds away from closest pursuer Turkington and had appeared to ship out an ominous warning that the three-time title winner and the Motorbase Efficiency Ford Focus squad might be powerful to beat in 2023.
Throughout a run of a number of laps within the early levels 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 document set by Jake Hill final season thanks to trace resurfacing work.
“I’m having fun with driving the automotive,” mentioned Turkington. “Donington has at all times been a great circuit for the 3-Collection, and with the additional grip you may push a bit tougher.
“However there’s at all times extra to seek out and that’s the difficult bit. I didn’t count on we’d be within the sevens [both Turkington and Sutton set laps below 1m08s], however I’m positive there’ll be some extra individuals nudging in there in qualifying.”
Sutton was the one driver within the total prime 10 to not enhance within the second session, though he did a 1m08.1s throughout a nine-lap ‘race’ run, whereas Turkington set a number of occasions in that bracket.
However the morning time set by the brand new father (Sutton’s girlfriend gave delivery to a child boy on Tuesday) was nonetheless good for second quickest total.
Though he was working slower, Sutton regarded good for second within the lunchtime session till a raft of late enhancements pushed him right down to fifth.
Quickest of these was his new team-mate Dan Rowbottom, who has regarded sturdy all day on his first race weekend in a Motorbase Ford since switching from the Staff Dynamics Honda squad.
The bearded Midlander narrowly pipped Turkington’s WSR BMW stablemate Jake Hill plus a rejuvenated Tom Chilton, giving a new-build Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N its aggressive debut.
Quickest of the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla contingent was Ricky Collard in sixth place, simply forward of the BMW of Adam Morgan, who’s starting his first race weekend with WSR.
Dan Cammish (Motorbase Ford) was eighth whereas reigning champion Tom Ingram bounced again from {an electrical} fault that stopped him at Schwantz Curve early within the first session, triggering the one pink flag of free apply, to go ninth within the later interval.
The highest 10 was accomplished by the quickest of the six-strong Staff Exhausting Cupra Leon contingent within the type of Dan Lloyd.
BTCC Donington: Full apply outcomes
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