Triple Eight’s Jason Plato was convincingly fastest in second practice at Rockingham, in a session shortened by 10 minutes by a red flag stoppage.

Plato’s MG 6 was 0.409 faster than Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan, but the gap behind was far tighter. A further 0.4 covered the 2013 champion and Fabrizio Giovanardi down in 12th, while just 0.085 covered the Honda Civic and Colin Turkington in sixth.

Plato’s team-mate Sam Tordoff was third, despite spinning off into the gravel at Gracelands, ahead of the impressive Tom Ingram, who followed up his morning form for Speedworks Motorsport in fourth.

Team BMR’s Aron Smith was fifth ahead of championship leader Turkington, with Marc Hynes a strong seventh, and Gordon Shedden, Adam Morgan and Mat Jackson completing the top 10.

The session was red flagged after 15 minutes when Team BMR’s Jack Goff lost a wheel on his Volkswagen CC heading into the ultra-fast banked first turn. He parked up on the exit of Tarzan, and after his car was returned to the pits, he rejoined in the final minutes of the session.

After the restart, Tordoff had his spin, while Rob Austin also had an off at Pif Paf, from which he recovered.

While several drivers improved on their final runs, West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard was surprisingly far down on the timesheets in 21st place, just ahead of team-mate Nick Foster.

While conditions were slightly improved on the morning session, the fog which covered the circuit was still very much in evidence, with cloudy conditions forecast for the rest of the day.