Reigning champion Andrew Jordan was fastest in the media day test at Donington Park, in a four-hour session where the great British weather set the tone for the times.

After a mixed first hour, the heavens opened just after 2pm, leading to an enforced period of quiet before the cars took to the track on wet weather tyres.

As a result, the teams will not be reading too much into the times after such limited dry running, with Jordan’s best lap around 0.7s slower than he managed in the bitterly cold conditions of media day last year.

Before the rain came, Jordan topped in the times in the Eurotech Racing Honda Civic, a mere 0.001 seconds ahead of Gordon Shedden in the new Honda Civic Tourer, with Alain Menu’s Team BMR Volkswagen CC just 0.139 seconds behind on his BTCC return.

Adam Morgan was fourth in the new Mercedes A-Class, ahead of Sam Tordoff’s Triple Eight MG, with Matt Neal, Aron Smith, Colin Turkington, Rob Collard and rookie Tom Ingram completing the top 10.

Triple Eight’s Marc Hynes racked up 64 laps of the day, the most of any driver, followed by West Surrey Racing’s Nick Foster, with 60 laps, and both Tordoff and Ingram, on 59 laps.

There were three red flags during the session. The first came after Chris Stockton stopped at the end of the pitlane in his BTC Racing Chevrolet Cruze, then the second after Shedden had an off at McLeans.

Stockton was also the architect of the third red flag, when he went off at McLeans with one hour left in the session.

The Welch Motorsport pair of Dan Welch and Ollie Jackson; Rotek Racing’s Robb Holland, Team BMR’s Jack Goff and JWT Performance’s Lea Wood didn’t run in the session.

Welch Motorsport are concentrating on finishing their cars, while Wood’s Toyota Avensis hasn’t been fitted with its engine yet.