The 22-year-old Scot whisked his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback around the North Yorkshire circuit with a lap just 0.117 seconds slower than the 2023 pole time in the middle of the morning session.
That effort left him 0.072s clear of Jake Hill, last week’s Brands test-topper emerging second fastest this time at the wheel of his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport.
Although the soft tyre will not be used at this July’s Croft race weekend, Autosport understands that Pearson set his time on this compound of the Goodyear rubber.
Pearson, who is expected to be a leading contender in the title fight for the Jack Sears Trophy sub-division, has more to learn than Excelr8 team leaders Tom Ingram and Tom Chilton, who were the only two drivers the team took to its three-day private test at Anglesey last month.
“Our testing programme’s going really well,” said Pearson.
“Some say it’s about quality over quantity. We haven’t done a huge amount of laps at all times, but ultimately we’ve got from all three days that we’ve done so far exactly what we wanted to.
“The position [at Croft] looks pretty, but we actually achieved more than what we set out to.
“It’s not about looking at the leaderboard – it’s about what I gain out of the days confidence-wise, and what we’re doing to the car set-up.”
Source: Autosport