Power Maxed Racing’s Aiden Moffat set the top time in free practice for the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park, just over a tenth of a second ahead of Team VERTU’s Tom Chilton.

Moffat put in the best lap of 1 minute 24.213 seconds, just 0.357 seconds off the qualifying lap record, in the final two minutes of the session, which had started on a slightly moist circuit.

Despite the dampness, all drivers ran with slick tyres in the 40-minute session, which saw few drivers pushing in the first two thirds of running as they instead focussed on tyres, setups and brake pads.

It took Chilton until the final ten minutes of the session to even post a competitive time, having spent much of the session in the garage as his EXCELR8 Motorsport team worked to resolve an issue on his car. The Hyundai driver eventually went second in the final minute.

Restart Racing’s Chris Smiley was likewise a late improver, going third a quarter of a second slower than Moffat’s Audi.

Mikey Doble enjoyed a spell at the top of the times at the mid-point of the session but eventually finished in fourth, ahead of the leading NAPA Racing UK car of championship leader Ash Sutton in fifth.

James Drolin put the second Restart Racing Hyundai in sixth, ahead of NAPA’s Dan Cammish in seventh, Power Maxed’s Dexter Patterson in eighth, Team VERTU’s Tom Ingram in ninth and WSR’s Daryl De Leon in tenth.

15 drivers were covered by less than a second, although neither of the Plato Racing Mercedes of Adam Morgan or Daniel Rowbottom were within that margin, the duo ending up down in 16th and 17th respectively.

Toyota’s Max Buxton did not post a lap – his team put out a statement on social media earlier in the day reporting that the 20-year-old “unfortunately will miss today’s qualifying day due to a viral infection. Doctors are hopeful he will be cleared to race tomorrow.”