Halfords Yuasa Racing’s Dan Cammish again dipped under the existing Thruxton qualifying lap record as the Honda driver proved to be the class of the field once more in the second and final BTCC practice session.
Last year’s championship runner-up is currently playing catch-up to the likes of Colin Turkington and Ashley Sutton in the 2020 standings, and the Yorkshireman recognises the need to make up ground at one of Honda’s favourite tracks. The driver of the #27 Honda set his benchmark on his first run 0f the final 40-minute practice session, with the lap time seemingly coming quite comfortably for the multiple race winner.
"I’ve done a few flying laps to see what the balance is like as we progress," said a confident Cammish with ten minutes of the session still remaining. "Thruxton is such a tyre killer in terms of degradation. We only get a certain amount of tyres to begin with and it’s the only circuit which we’re using the hard compound tyre this year.
"We’ve all got a certain amount to use and other than putting another set on there’s not much I can gain now. So now park it up, give it 10 minutes, get back in and then we’ll do our practice start and obviously the weigh-in at the end. I will get back in it but to be honest, other than just driving in circles and wearing it all out, I don’t think there’s much left to gain there."
Excelr8 Motorsport’s Senna Proctor and Carlube TripleR Racing with Mac Tools’ Adam Morgan were third and fourth respectively, whilst Matt Neal backed up the prowess of the Honda Civic Type R by slotting into fourth.
Championship leader Turkington is again going about his business in a quietly confident manner as the Team BMW star set the fifth quickest time with his 3 Series carrying maximum success ballast.
Michael Crees enjoyed a hugely impressive run to take sixth, whilst Excelr8 Motorsport's encouraging day continued with Chris Smiley claiming seventh as the Hyundai hopes to extract more straightline speed at the UK's fastest circuit this weekend.
Tom Ingram was eighth in the Speedworks-run Toyota Corolla, whilst the BTC Racing duo of Tom Chilton and Josh Cook rounded out the top ten.
Qualifying for Round 13 of the 2020 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship takes place at 1510 with the action being streamed live and exclusively via www.itv.com/btcc.
2020 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship – Free Practice 2 – Thruxton
1 Dan CAMMISH (GBR) Halfords Yuasa Racing 1:15.386s
2 Senna PROCTOR (GBR) Excelr8 Motorsport +0.600s
3 Adam MORGAN (GBR) Carlube TripleR Racing with Mac Tools +0.764s
4 Matt NEAL (GBR) Halfords Yuasa Racing +0.785s
5 Colin TURKINGTON (GBR) Team BMW +1.002s
6 Michael CREES (GBR) The Clever Baggers with BTC Racing +1.073s
7 Chris SMILEY (GBR) Excelr8 Motorsport +1.092s
8 Tom INGRAM (GBR) Toyota Gazoo Racing UK with Ginsters +1.114s
9 Tom CHILTON (GBR) BTC Racing +1.209s
10 Josh COOK (GBR) BTC Racing +1.272s
11 Stephen JELLEY (GBR) Team Parker Racing +1.439s
12 Rory BUTCHER (GBR) Motorbase Performance +1.541s
13 Rob AUSTIN (GBR) Power Maxed Car Care Racing +1.542s
14 Tom OLIPHANT (GBR) Team BMW +1.627s
15 Jake HILL (GBR) MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square +1.711s
16 Ashley SUTTON (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +1.758s
17 Jack GOFF (GBR) RCIB Insurance with Fox Transport +1.764s
18 James GORNALL (GBR) GKR TradePriceCars.com +1.796s
19 Aiden MOFFAT (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +2.139s
20 Bobby THOMPSON (GBR) GKR TradePriceCars.com +2.244s
21 Ollie JACKSON (GBR) Motorbase Performance +2.284s
22 Sam OSBORNE (GBR) MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square +2.532s
23 Jack BUTEL (GBR) Carlube TripleR Racing with Mac Tools +2.906s
24 Carl BOARDLEY (GBR) HUB Financial Solutions with Team HARD +2.965s
25 Tom ONSLOW-COLE (GBR) RCIB Insurance with Fox Transport +3.140s
26 Nicolas HAMILTON (GBR) ROKiT Racing with Team HARD +4.039s
DQ Andy NEATE (GBR) Motorbase Performance +3.379s