CPRL’s Daniel Rowbottom put in a late lap to top the times in the sole British Touring Car Championship free practice session at Silverstone, pipping Power Maxed Racing’s Mikey Doble by just 0.022 seconds.

As is par for the course around the short Silverstone National circuit, the times were incredibly close, with the top four drivers covered by less than a tenth of a second, whilst the top 20 were within a second of the pace.

Prior to Rowbottom putting his Mercedes on top in the final seconds, it had been Doble leading the way with his effort of 56.798 seconds, when he went to the top with around 11 minutes to go.

Then in the final moments, Rowbottom put in an effort of 56.776 seconds to prove the Mercedes is continuing its late-season run of form.

WSR’s Charles Rainford was third quickest as the best BMW, whilst fourth-placed Adam Morgan was also within a tenth of his team-mate’s time in his CPRL Mercedes.

Toyota’s Josh Cook was fifth quickest, having been on top of the times for much of the session from 15 minutes in, ultimately failing to improve thereafter with his early benchmark of 56.972 seconds.

Tom Chilton was the leading Team VERTU driver in sixth, ahead of the Restart Racing Hyundai of Daniel Lloyd in seventh.

The top ten was completed by the PMR Audi of Aiden Moffat, the WSR BMW of Daryl De Leon and the Laser Tools Racing Toyota of Gordon Shedden.

Championship rivals Tom Ingram, Dan Cammish and Ash Sutton were just 11th, 13th and 20th respectively, with their lack of TOCA Turbo Boost [TTB] proving particularly pronounced around the power-heavy National circuit.

Track limits were an ongoing issue during, with 24 track-limits infringements or final warnings issued to 18 different cars. Three black flags were shown during the session, issued to Nicolas Hamilton Lewis Gilbert and Lewis Selby, curtailing their sessions early.