BTCC Brands Hatch: trio going for title in this weekend's finale
Sutton currently leads the Championship with 345 points followed by Hill and Ingram with 340 and 338 respectively
British Touring Car Championship set for thrilling climax with Ash Sutton, Jake Hill and Tom Ingram in contention
Three drivers, seven points between them, three races to go. That’s the tantalising prospect at Brands Hatch this weekend as the British Touring Car Championship heads for what has become its traditional nail-biting season finale.
Ash Sutton leads the way as he chases a record-equalling fourth crown, but Jake Hill and Tom Ingram both want to be champion for the first time, and with so little between the trio, predictions are futile.
What about Colin Turkington? The man who shares the record of four titles with Andy Rouse is a prime (and painful) example of the fine margins that can decide BTCC fates.
The Northern Irishman headed into the penultimate meeting at Silverstone on top of the standings, but a disastrous first race in which he was in the wrong place at the wrong time not once but twice left him on the back foot.
He has slumped to 27 points off Sutton’s tally, and although there are 67 still to play for at Brands, his hopes for a fifth crown must now be considered a long shot. Then again, to borrow from the late, great Murray Walker, anything can happen in the BTCC, and it usually does.
*Sutton's hopes for the future *
Before the season began, Sutton made it all too clear to Autocar where his racing priorities lie. “To come away with the most championships to my name at the end of my career would be the ultimate goal,” the 28-year-old told us. “We’re a long way down that path already, six years in and three championships down. It’s not a bad percentage. As long as we can maintain that, we’re on.”
If Sutton does join Rouse and Turkington this weekend as a four-time champion, there’s little doubt that it will be his finest achievement so far. Last winter, he sent shock waves through the BTCC by switching from the Laser Tools Infiniti Q50 in which he had just won consecutive titles to a new challenge with Motorbaserun Napa Racing’s Ford Focus ST.
New team, new car – and, more significantly, a switch from the rear-wheel-drive power delivery that he had mastered so completely to front-wheel drive. That’s a huge challenge in touring car terms, and to become champion – and at the first attempt since making the switch – would elevate Sutton from his already rarefied status as one of the BTCC’s best.
He probably wouldn’t need the fifth title for most people to consider him the series GOAT – greatest of all time. But given how much he has achieved already, few would bet against him clocking up five and more.
Naturally, Sutton took time to adjust and get into his full swing this season – although he still scored a podium at the first meeting of the year. It’s his relentless consistency and focus on the bigger picture, of nearly always scoring decent points even when victory is out of reach, that’s key to his fantastically effective approach. He has won three races since Knockhill at the end of July, but the Silverstone performance exemplified why he’s leading the way into the final knockings. Sixth, fourth, second: on a day when his car wasn’t the quickest in the field, he stuck to his long-game mission.
He’s a shining example to any ambitious racing driver in any discipline if they want to earn multiple titles.
*Chasing their first victory *
Sutton is outstanding, but he’s not unbeatable, especially if the cards fall against him, as they did so quickly for Turkington at Silverstone – and in Hill and Ingram, he faces formidable foes, both of whom are hungry and more than capable of snatching their first BTCC crowns.
Compared with Sutton, Hill has travelled in reverse this season, from a front-driven Focus ST to a rear-driven BMW 330e run by WSR under the badging of Mark Blundell’s MB Motorsport.
Also 28, he has matured into a devastatingly effective BTCC star. He’s heading to his home circuit, where fiercely proud father Simon spent many years as a racing school instructor, so it would be the perfect backdrop if destiny is to fall on his side.
Hill was the star performer at Silverstone, shadowing Rory Butcher’s Toyota Corolla in race one, then pulling off the move of the weekend on Gordon Shedden’s Honda Civic Type R to win race two, and should be pumped full of confidence this weekend.
Twice a BTCC runner-up, 29-year-old Ingram has four wins under his belt this term, his second driving Excelr8’s Hyundai i30 N Fastback, and he has no interest in playing the bridesmaid again.
There was some fortune in his race-three win at Silverstone, when Josh Cook and Dan Cammish came together off the line and then Cook was tail-ended by Adam Morgan at Becketts – but everyone needs and relies on a slice of luck in motorsport.
“We really needed a good result to bring us back in, because those first two races were good and pointsy but not quite pointsy enough,” said Ingram. “Ash and I just said to each other we couldn’t have asked for it to have gone
any better. It was exactly like Moses: the sea parted… We needed a bit of luck, because we’ve sometimes been on the other side of it. Now it’s absolutely on. I’m not going to sleep between now and Brands. Let’s get going!”
As Sutton said: “It’s like it has been scripted all year. It couldn’t be tighter. You’ve got a great combination of front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive cars, and Brands Hatch is our home circuit for the team. We’re in a really good place with the car. In the second half of the season, I’ve felt at one with it. I’ve been able to tweak it, dial it in and chip away at it, and it got us into the championship lead. I couldn’t have asked for anything more going into the final rounds.” Neither could we.