BTCC champion team West Surrey Racing started their preparations for the new season in earnest at Thruxton today.

Triple world champion Andy Priaulx and his new-team mates Sam Tordoff and Rob Collard were all running at the Hampshire circuit on the first of two days’ testing.

They were joined by Triple Eight Racing’s Andrew Jordan and Motorbase Performance’s Alex Martin, who also shared a circuit on their previous day’s testing at Brands Hatch last week.

Rounding off the touring car contingent was series returnee Jeff Smith, running in the Eurotech Racing Honda Civic.

One driver missing out is AmD Tuning’s Mike Bushell, who has been hospitalised by a bout of pneumonia and has been forced to sit out the test.

The teams were running this after afternoon only ahead of a full day’s testing tomorrow. The most significant news ahead of the second day is that Honda Racing Team will be running the Civic Tourer from 2014, a car which they plan to replace with a new Civic for 2015.

Also planning to run tomorrow are BTCC newcomers, Infiniti Support Our Paras Racing, with drivers Richard Hawken and Derek Palmer Jnr.

Below is a handful of pictures from the test at the fastest circuit on the calendar, courtesy of PSP Images.