Triple Eight’s Sam Tordoff set a record pace en route to topping the times in a shortened second session at Croft, with a heavy off for Rob Austin causing a red flag with nine minutes to go.

Tordoff set two laps good enough for P1, both of which were under Colin Turkington’s qualifying lap record set in his BMW 125i last year.

But many of the leading runners lost a shot at a final run in qualifying trim, when Austin went off at Clervaux and hit the barrier in his Audi A4.

Just behind Tordoff was reigning champion Andrew Jordan; the Eurotech Racing man 0.275 off the pace and also under the lap record, with Adam Morgan maintaining his impressive morning form in third, in the Ciceley Racing Mercedes A-Class.

Turkington was fourth, while Glynn Geddie enjoyed a season’s best showing in fifth, having run as high as third in his United Autosports Toyota Avensis.

Austin wound up sixth despite his accident, with Gordon Shedden, Alain Menu, Martin Depper and Dave Newsham completing the top 10.

Notably absent from the timing sheets was Triple Eight’s Jason Plato, who didn’t set a laptime after spending much of the session in the garage. The MG 6 driver had just started a flying lap when the red flags flew for Austin’s crash.

The session took place in cool conditions under drab skies and only the occasional sprinkling of drizzle, allowing the field to get a full 40 minutes of dry running.