Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing's Aron Taylor-Smith topped the opening Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship Free Practice session at Oulton Park, continuing his recent run of fantastic form.

Taylor-Smith has been in dominant form in the Independents' Trophy, often vying for top spot with team-mate Mikey Doble, but the Vauxhall Astra squad has been edging closer towards overall honours.

Part of the track has been resurfaced during the off-season with Taylor-Smith's benchmark lap already matching last year's pole time. With many of the cars also running used Goodyear tyres, we can arguably expect to see some extremely quick times later this afternoon.

NAPA Racing UK's Dan Rowbottom was second, ahead of the Team BRISTOL STREET MOTORS' Ronan Pearson.

Tom Ingram and Dan Cammish also backed up the prowess of both the Hyundais and Fords by being next in the order, closely followed by a trio of BMWs.

Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill was sixth, ahead of the sister Team BMW cars of Adam Morgan and Colin Turkington.

NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton and Team BRISTOL STREET MOTORS’ Tom Chilton completed the top ten in what was a relatively trouble free practice session.

After a particularly mixed start to the campaign when it comes to the weather, the cars and stars of the BTCC have been treated to some glorious sunshine so far in the North West of England at the beautiful Oulton Park.

The cars are back on track for FP2 at 1230, before qualifying takes place at 1535. You can keep up to date with all the action via the LIVE section on the BTCC website, whilst qualifying will also be streamed LIVE vis the ITV Sport YouTube channel.

Oulton Park – Free Practice 1 – Final Classification