Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan held off a late attack from the BTC Racing duo of Senna Proctor and Josh Cook to top the opening BTCC free practice session at Donington Park.

The BMW 3 Series of Morgan set a fastest lap time of 1:09.840s, which was just 0.003s quicker than Proctor’s Honda, whilst Cook also lapped within a tenth of the benchmark.

Cook was best-placed of the main championship contenders, whilst he was followed on the timesheets by the manufacturer-backed Toyotas of Rory Butcher and Sam Smelt.

Halfords Racing with Cataclean’s Gordon Shedden – still chasing a first win of the season – was sixth-fastest, ahead of the Draper Tools sponsored Hyundai of Chris Smiley.

Championship leader Ash Sutton performed consistently as ever, with the #1 Laser Tools Racing Infiniti coming home eighth, ahead of title rival Tom Ingram in the Ginsters-backed EXCELR8 Hyundai.

Aron Taylor-Smith rounded out the top ten, fresh from announcing his new multi-year deal with Team HARD.

The rest of the Team HARD camp endured tougher times in the opening session, with off-track moments for both Jack Goff and Nic Hamilton bringing out the red flags.

Free Practice 2 takes place at 1210, before Qualifying for Round 25 of the 2021 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship commences at 1435. Qualifying will again be in the showdown format, as carried out at Snetterton and Silverstone, and will be streamed live via www.itv.com/btcc.

Adam Morgan said: “That’s nice, isn’t it? I spent a lot of time over the week with my engineer Steve and we’ve been discussing various different setups on the car and what we want to try and achieve with it. It’s a learning year for us. We’ve gone back to a setup that we used earlier in the year, which we tried and experimented with, and it worked. Then we tried a different avenue and explored that, but we’re back to it now and it seems alright.

“I’ve surprised myself really with some of the pace I’ve shown. To have two wins and two podiums in our first year, I didn’t think that was going to happen. It’s been good. At one point we were P5 in the championship and I really thought we could be a title contender, that’s faded now, but for us it’s scoring points, learning as much as we can about the car and hopefully coming back stronger next year.”

2021 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship – Free Practice 1 – Donington Park

1             Adam MORGAN (GBR) Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport +1:09.840s
2             Senna PROCTOR(GBR) BTC Racing +0.003s
3            Josh COOK (GBR) BTC Racing +0.099s
4            Rory BUTCHER (GBR) Toyota Gazoo Racing UK +0.110s
5            Sam SMELT (GBR) Toyota Gazoo Racing UK +0.245s
6            Gordon SHEDDEN (GBR) Halfords Racing with Cataclean +0.248s
7             Chris SMILEY (GBR) Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com +0.282s
8            Ashley SUTTON (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +0.344s
9             Tom INGRAM (GBR) Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com +0.382s
10          Árón TAYLOR-SMITH (IRL) Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions +0.437s
11          Jake HILL (GBR) MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square +0.441s
12          Tom CHILTON (GBR) Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport +0.443s
13          Jason PLATO (GBR) Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing +0.495s
14          Aiden MOFFAT (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +0.514s
15          Daniel ROWBOTTOM (GBR) Halfords Racing with Cataclean +0.549s
16          Stephen JELLEY (GBR) Team BMW +0.674s
17          Colin TURKINGTON (GBR) Team BMW +0.692s
18          Daniel LLOYD (GBR) Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing +0.762s
19          Ollie JACKSON (GBR) MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square +0.776s
20          Jack MITCHELL (GBR) Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct +0.832s
21          Andy NEATE (GBR) Racing with Wera & Photon Group +0.963s
22          Jack GOFF (GBR) Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct +0.980s
23          Tom OLIPHANT (GBR) Team BMW +0.983s
24          Sam OSBORNE (GBR) Racing with Wera & Photon Group +1.158s
25          Jack BUTEL (GBR) EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com +1.431s
26          Nicolas HAMILTON (GBR) ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading +1.560s
27          Rick PARFITT (GBR) EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com +1.665s
28          Jade EDWARDS (GBR) PHSC with BTC Racing +2.012s
29          Carl BOARDLEY (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +8.104s