Tom Ingram set a steaming early pace in opening practice for the first round of the 2025 BTCC season. At a warm Donington Park the 2022 champion banged in a 1m07.364s lap to go quicker than the pole position record for the National layout with Excelr8 teammate Tom Chilton trailing him by 0.565s.

Ash Sutton went third quickest with a 1m08.104s lap, with the NAPA Ford driver being the only non-Excelr8 driver in the top four with the new Hyundai racer Adam Morgan placing fourth.

Daryl Deleon in a WSR BMW completed the first official lap of the 2025 season with he and Toyota man Ronan Pearson bringing down the times incrementally while lapping in the early stages before any meaningful times were dropped.

Defending Champion Jake Hill lapped in 1m08.551s to go top after 12 minutes, which would be his fastest time – putting him down in 14^th. The reported struggles from the off-season for the team in terms of setting up a lighter car are from being confirmed as WSR do have a habit of setting run plans that see their machines down the order often in practice. Newcomer Charles Rainford ran eighth fastest with DeLeon in 19^th. Auden Moffat in the fourth BMW was stuck on pitlane with a technical issue that the tam would not confirm.

Pre-season pace setters Mikey Doble and Max Hall had very different sessions. Doble, in the sole Vauxhall ran in seventh with Hall down in 20^th with Cupra teammate Dexter Patterson going 16^th. Returnee Nic Hamilton in the third Cupra was black flagged – along with Pearson for repeated track limit violations.

01	Tom Ingram		Hyundai	1:07.364
02	Tom Chilton		Hyundai	+0.565
03	Ashley Sutton		Ford	+0.740
04	Adam Morgan		Hyundai	+0.749
05	Dan Cammish		Ford	+0.752
06	Dan Rowbottom		Ford	+0.823
07	Mikey Doble		Vauxhall	+1.003
08	Charles Rainford		BMW	+1.011
09	James Dorlin		Toyota	+1.063
10	Chris Smiley		Hyundai	+1.070