Swan Honda's James Ellison left it until the dying moments of the second free practice session to put in a flying lap close to lap record pace to force Worx Crescent Suzuki's Tommy Hill back to second in the final minute at Thruxton.

Ellison charged to the top of the times early in the session with a time of 1m:15.441s to knock Suzuki from the top of the times after this morning's opening free practice when they locked out the top three positions.

The session was red flagged with just under 20 minutes remaining when Tommy Bridewell crashed out at the Club Chicane. At this point it was Ellison that still held the top spot ahead of Tommy Hill on the Worx Crescent Suzuki by 0.150s, with Yukio Kagayama, Stuart Easton and Josh Brookes rounding out the top five.

When the session restarted Michael Laverty climbed to fourth behind an improving Easton as the gap between the top nine riders closed considerably. Laverty then continued to up his pace and with 13 minutes on the clock he went 0.005s ahead of Ellison to move top of the timesheets.

Brookes was making improvements too on the HM Plant Honda, he moved fourth in the final 15 minutes to narrow the gap to 0.261s between him and Laverty's fastest lap.

Laverty looked set to stay at the top of the times, but Ellison put in the only sub 1m:15s time of 1m:14.907 to put the Swan Honda top in the final minute, with Hill also improving in the final seconds to move second, just 0.271s shy.

Ellison said:

"I am really happy to have finished fastest on a Friday as this hasn't happened for a while, so it is a good way for me to start the weekend. We still have some work to do to get the Swan Honda changing direction better, but it will only need to be a few tweaks as we did a lot of work this morning in the first session which we really benefitted from. We are already faster than we were last year in the race and to be not that far off record pace on a practice day is an awesome feeling."

Laverty was forced to settle for third ahead of Brookes who maintained his fourth place on the leading HM Plant Honda, whilst team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari was only 15th at the end of the session. Easton was fifth ahead of Alastair Seeley on the second Relentless Suzuki by TAS with Yukio Kagayama dropping to seventh after a strong start. Martin Jessopp led team-mate Michael Rutter for eighth and ninth respectively and Gary Mason rounded out the top ten for the MSS Colchester Kawasaki team.

Steve Brogan was running 16th for the Jentin Racing-BMW Motorrad team as they moved to the main championship for this round, with Gary Johnson the top Mirror.co.uk BSB - Evo rider on the AIM Suzuki.