BTCC Silverstone: Hyundai team in late-season engine switch

British Touring Car Championship Hyundai team Excelr8 Motorsport has switched engine suppliers on the Hyundai i30 N Fastback of Tom Chilton for the rest of the season.

Excelr8 has used bespoke Hyundai engines built by Swindon Powertrain since the 2022 season, when Tom Ingram took the first of his two titles with the team.

But now the decision has been made to equip the machine of Chilton with the customer M-Sport-built TOCA powerplant for this weekend’s round at Silverstone, and the finale at Brands Hatch.

Nineteen-time BTCC race winner Chilton has suffered a series of alternator failures this season, restricting him to 12th in the championship.

Chilton shook down the Hyundai at M-Sport’s Cumbria facility during the week before arriving at Silverstone, where he went sixth fastest in free practice. This was also comfortably the fastest time set on medium-compound Goodyear tyres, albeit a brand-new set.

“We’ve done the whole year with Swindon and it is a great engine,” Chilton told Autosport. “But everybody knows that the ancillaries – the third-party parts that Swindon can’t do anything about – have been letting us down a lot. I just want to do the last two rounds with some reliability and end the season on a high.

“M-Sport are very good at what they do. Everyone assumes that a customer engine is the cheap option, but they’re a leading company – I know that after being shown around their machine shop!

“We’ve still got a bit of refining to do on it, but hopefully we should get that sorted in time for qualifying.”

Photo by: JEP

That has not been the only change at Excelr8, where Osamu Kawashima has stepped in to make his BTCC debut in place of Ricky Collard, who sits fourth in the championship.

The 57-year-old Kawashima, the first driver from his country to take part in the BTCC since a one-off appearance for Japanese great Kunimitsu Takahashi in a Colt Starion Turbo in 1985, firmly brought up the rear of the 23-car field in free practice.

Fastest was the CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon of Dan Rowbottom, who left it until the chequered flag to dislodge Mikey Doble’s Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon from the summit – by just 0.022 seconds.

Further late improvements from Charles Rainford (West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport) and Adam Morgan (CPRL Mercedes) placed them third and fourth respectively at the finish.

Josh Cook sat atop the times for much of the session in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport, before the flurry of quick laps in the final five minutes dropped him to fifth.

Behind Chilton, the top 10 was completed by Dan Lloyd (Restart Racing Hyundai), Aiden Moffat (PMR Audi), Daryl De Leon (WSR BMW) and Gordon Shedden (Speedworks Toyota).

Ash Sutton, who is likely to be crowned champion in Sunday’s races with one round to spare, was 20th fastest in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium. His access to just one second per lap of TOCA Turbo Boost has an enormous effect on the Silverstone National Circuit due to its short lap time (56s) and long straights.

BTCC Silverstone - Practice results

FiP

All Stats

 

Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h
1	D. Rowbottom Cataclean Plato Racing	32		Mercedes A35 Saloon	31	56.776		104.013
2	M. Doble LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing	88		Audi A3 Saloon	35	+0.022 56.798	0.022	103.973
3	C. Rainford West Surrey Racing	99		BMW 330i M Sport	34	+0.042 56.818	0.020	103.936
4	A. Morgan Cataclean Plato Racing	33		Mercedes A35 Saloon	27	+0.056 56.832	0.014	103.910
5	J. Cook Speedworks Corolla Racing	66		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	33	+0.196 56.972	0.140	103.655
6	T. Chilton Team Vertu	3		Hyundai i30N	26	+0.231 57.007	0.035	103.591
7	D. Lloyd Restart Racing	123		Hyundai i30N	33	+0.335 57.111	0.104	103.403
8	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing	16		Audi A3 Saloon	24	+0.399 57.175	0.064	103.287
9	D. De Leon West Surrey Racing	2		BMW 330i M Sport	28	+0.424 57.200	0.025	103.242
10	G. Shedden Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	52		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	28	+0.435 57.211	0.011	103.222
11	T. Ingram Team Vertu	80		Hyundai i30N	30	+0.489 57.265	0.054	103.125
12	D. Patterson Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing	17		Audi A3 Saloon	27	+0.520 57.296	0.031	103.069
13	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK	27		Ford Focus Titanium	27	+0.556 57.332	0.036	103.004
14	A. Taylor-Smith Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	50		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	27	+0.584 57.360	0.028	102.954
15	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK	77		Ford Focus Titanium	35	+0.598 57.374	0.014	102.929
16	R. Bensley Speedworks Corolla Racing	7		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	33	+0.618 57.394	0.020	102.893
17	L. Gilbert West Surrey Racing	29		BMW 330i M Sport	33	+0.730 57.506	0.112	102.693
18	L. Selby NAPA Racing UK	15		Ford Focus Titanium	31	+0.761 57.537	0.031	102.637
19	C. Smiley Restart Racing	22		Hyundai i30N	33	+0.929 57.705	0.168	102.338
20	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK	116		Ford Focus Titanium	30	+0.973 57.749	0.044	102.260
21	N. Hamilton Team Vertu	28		Hyundai i30N	29	+1.098 57.874	0.125	102.040
22	N. Halstead Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing	55		Audi A3 Saloon	30	+1.433 58.209	0.335	101.452
23	O. Kawashima Team Vertu	81		Hyundai i30N	31	+3.000 59.776	1.567	98.793
View full results