How the BTCC showdown culminated in a new king of the Hill

Amid all the irritating bells-and-whistles of modern motorsport, the defining moment of the British Touring Car Championship climax at Brands Hatch featured a tremendous example of classic 1960s sportsmanship, as if Jake Hill and Tom Ingram were still going at it in front of the ‘frightfully good show’ audience of their Goodwood Revival joust last month. Yes, Hill pushed his hybrid-turbo power boost button to complete the move, but so did Ingram in his vain attempt to defend – so their resorting to 2020s gimmickry cancelled each other out.

What was beautiful about this title-winning blast was its immediate prelude. Hill swept his West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport around the outside of Ingram’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback at Surtees, the wet track perhaps helping him to find relatively good grip the long way around this cambered, climbing left-hander.

There are plenty of drivers who, in the same situation, would have run Hill out of road on the corner exit. But Ingram isn’t one of them, and he allowed just enough room for the BMW – as long as its right-hand wheels were on the kerb.

Side by side they approached the right kink before Pilgrim’s Drop, and here Ingram moved for the apex – but again, he left just enough room for Hill to nip the inside kerb and remain alongside. The move was completed at Hawthorn’s with Hill on the inside line and, although Ingram attempted to fight back at Westfield, it was a forlorn hope.

Ladies and gentlemen, the BTCC has a new champion. Where Hill was delirious, Ingram appeared absolutely devastated not to take his second crown. And then there was Ash Sutton, knocked out of title contention in race one last weekend, but reminding everyone of his magical powers in wet weather by dominating that finale to the tune of over 10 seconds. Appropriately, these three BTCC superstars of 2024 collectively ruled last weekend’s season sign-off, with one win apiece.

There’s a fourth, of course, as Hill would readily acknowledge. Much of four-time champion Colin Turkington’s final 19-point deficit to third-placed Sutton in the standings was down to his playing the game for his team-mate, in doing so forfeiting his own slender chances. Last time out at Silverstone, Turkington had moved his BMW aside for the Laser Tools-liveried sister car, and he did so again at Brands in race one, then dutifully sat behind it in the sequel.

Turkington played the team game perfectly by moving aside for Hill in the opener

Photo by: JEP

“I just have to thank everybody, and specifically my team-mate Colin,” acknowledged Hill. “He’s helped me so much to achieve this. He’s played an amazing team game – I can’t thank him enough really.”

Predictably, Turkington had set himself up for this role by claiming pole position. With a surfeit of hybrid access owing to his lowly pre-weekend sixth place in the championship, and with a driver of his calibre in the 3-Series on the GP circuit, that should have been a given. That he did so by a mere 0.036 seconds over Ingram – allowed just one second per lap of hybrid to Turkington’s 11 – was down to an effort that the Northern Irishman candidly explained could have been better.

“There were a couple of places I could have hooked it up a bit better but obviously it was fast,” he reckoned. “A few wee moments where I was fighting the car a bit. Qualifying is so stressful now you have to pole it three times!”

Had that damper not failed, and Hill's qualifying position been better, his title hopes could have been left in tatters within half a minute of Sunday’s race action starting

The new-for-2024 three-phase qualifying format to which Turkington was alluding nearly caught out Ingram. The 2022 champion did a terrific job to get his Hyundai onto the front row, but would have fallen at the Q2 hurdle had Adam Morgan, going great guns last Saturday in his WSR BMW, not had what would have been the second fastest lap disallowed for a track-limits offence.

With competitors allowed one new set of soft Goodyear tyres for the weekend, to use in one race, qualifying was a war of strategy. “We used our worst set of tyres in Q2,” explained Ingram, “and saved the new set for Q3.”

Over at Alliance Racing’s NAPA Ford Focus ST garage, its main title attacker Sutton had set the quickest time of all in Q3, only to have that struck off for track limits. He regrouped and clocked a lap good enough for third, but his own tyre strategy only worked for that initial effort.

“The pace in the car was phenomenal,” he enthused. “But Aron [Taylor-Smith] was entering Turn 1 on the inside as I was on the brakes and in the back of your mind is, ‘Is he going to be in the way?’ To be fair he wasn’t, but it took my focus off, and a little bit of oversteer pushed me wide.” Sutton had gone for new soft tyres on the front only, which was “good for one lap but overpowering for the rear axle after it”.

Qualifying was somewhat disappointing for Hill, but it counterintuitively proved crucial in his bid for glory during race one

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And down in sixth, behind the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla of a mathematical title shot Josh Cook and Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Taylor-Smith, was Hill. Like Ingram, he was on one second per lap of hybrid, but counterintuitively he was “pretty happy with it. The car was fantastic all the way through qualifying but unfortunately, I just had a slight issue with the rear, and it didn’t quite stay with me through Q3. It feels like the left-rear damper has let go.”

Hill was right to be happy, because his sixth-place starting position left him in the perfect position to exploit what happened on the opening lap of the first race at the Druids hairpin. Had that damper not failed, and his qualifying position been better, his title hopes could have been left in tatters within half a minute of Sunday’s race action starting…

While Turkington used the rear-wheel-drive traction of the BMW to get away in front, and Hill moved ahead of Taylor-Smith into fifth, Cook got mixed up with Sutton and Ingram. Sutton got a superb start to squeeze ahead of Ingram into Paddock Hill Bend, then Cook got a run on Ingram on the exit.

The Toyota and Hyundai made side-to-side contact up the hill. Then, into the braking zone, Cook suddenly speared sideways down the inside of Sutton, who darted left in apparent avoidance, tangled with Ingram and was left marooned in the gravel with broken left-front suspension.

Morgan was assisted from behind into heavy contact with Cook’s stricken Toyota, and in turn was assailed by the innocent Rob Huff, the BMW so badly damaged it would not reappear until the final race. Ingram was down to 10th but still running with a healthy Hyundai.

Such is the esteem in which Cook is held – “We know Josh is not a numpty,” asserted Ingram – that most onlookers assumed there was something wrong with his Toyota.

“From my side it looked like he outbraked himself, caught out by me and Tom,” said Sutton, whose last hopes of the 2024 title evaporated in that gravel trap. “But he has said he had a puncture. It’s happened now, it’s irrelevant.” Speedworks did affirm that the puncture had caused the incident, and most were willing to give Cook the benefit of any doubt.

“Ultimately Ash was incredibly focused on getting past Tom because he thought that was his only chance to try and win this championship, and then Josh had a bit of a run,” recounted Hill, who was sitting right behind the shenanigans. “It looked like he just locked the rear axle up and he had no option but to go right, and obviously collected them both.

An early opening race tangle with Cook effectively ended defending champion Sutton's title hopes, delayed Ingram and put Hill in position to win

Photo by: JEP

“And I was delighted. And then me and Colin got into a safe situation and he very kindly made the switch with me. And not only did that help us bag our manufacturers championship for BMW with us being 1-2, but it helped me build that few points’ lead.”

Hill, indeed, had experienced his Moses Red Sea moment – or champions’ luck – by gleefully slipping past the chaos and rising from fifth to second, behind only his highly altruistic team-mate. After the inevitable safety car, Turkington stayed out front for a lap and a half before Hill had put sufficient distance between himself and the chasing PMR Vauxhall of Mikey Doble to allow the switch to take place in safety.

In hindsight, that was just in time because few could have predicted that a stunning charge from Ingram would bring him up to third place, and then onto Turkington’s rear bumper with a very long four laps of the GP circuit still to go. It was all down to hybrid strategy, and Ingram used his single lap of power boost to get so close as to nudge the white BMW through Hawthorn’s. But Turkington – himself running out of his six-lap hybrid allocation – did a sterling job to hold on, and allow winner Hill to stretch a five-point advantage.

Ingram’s pace in that opener hinted at domination in race two, particularly in light of the cool, blustery weather and the medium-tyre obligation

Now we were down to two title contenders. From the initial six, Sutton, Cook and Turkington had all fallen out of the equation, along with Dan Cammish, who had put in an excellent race from 10th on the grid in his Alliance Ford to demote Taylor-Smith three laps from home for the honour of lead medium-tyred runner home in fifth, behind Doble.

Under the BTCC sporting regulations, the top 10 would all be obliged to run the medium tyre in race two, but then Cammish and Taylor-Smith would be let loose on the soft for the finale among a herd of medium runners. Their reversed-grid positions of fourth and second meant they would have been looking very good to fight for victory, only for the rain to arrive hours earlier than anticipated and force everyone onto the wet-weather compound. Doh!

Ingram’s pace in that opener hinted at domination in race two, particularly in light of the cool, blustery weather and the medium-tyre obligation. The rear-wheel-drive BMWs would surely struggle to get heat through the driven axle, and so it proved.

Ingram pulled off a marvellous manoeuvre on Turkington around the outside of Hawthorn’s on the opening lap, then dived down the inside of Hill into Paddock Hill Bend the next time around. Sure enough, Ingram rattled off a couple of fastest laps as he extended his advantage early doors, but crucially the bonus point for that was negated by Hill just about gaining a lap-leader point moments before the Hyundai went past, to leave him one ahead into the showdown.

Ingram couldn't find a way past Turkington in race one, but soared to victory in race two, setting up a thrilling decider

Photo by: JEP

Ingram, ebullient as he emerged from his car, could scent a title victory. Hill could only offer a less convincing “we’re still there…”

To be fair, once the first few laps had been rattled off, there was nothing to choose between the Hyundai and the chasing BMWs, and Hill had eroded the deficit to just over a second two-thirds of the way through the race when he deployed his only lap of hybrid. Turkington sat steadfastly behind him.

“You just want to try and go and win the race,” laughed a man who did appear to have a lot of pace – had he been free to use it. “But I just had to sit in third really…”

"Just a massive lack of grip, so I couldn’t get it stopped, I couldn’t turn it, I couldn’t get off the corner. I just felt like I was on an old tyre right from the get-go"
Tom Ingram

Some way adrift, Cammish came home fourth ahead of the thrilling Sutton, who sliced his way up from 19th to fifth in the first four laps. This set up one of Cammish’s best displays as an Alliance Ford driver: winning a fight with Sutton.

The reigning champion dived down the inside at Westfield with three and a half laps remaining, but ran wide and Cammish got the cutback to squeeze back in front at Sheene Curve. The battle was then called off, Alliance mindful that it needed the points for its ultimately successful bid to win the teams’ championship, although it was BMW that claimed the manufacturers’ crown.

And now it was all down to this. With the one-point gap, it was a straight head-to-head between Hill and Ingram.

In the Laser Tools garage, a helmeted Hill hugged each and every one of the folk who work on his car before climbing aboard, mindful of how much they have contributed to a story that should never have been accessible to someone of such limited financial means. Next door at Excelr8, Ingram strode through a crowd of well-wishers and then stood contemplatively, alone, in the corner, absent-mindedly smoothing back his hair, watching on the TV monitor the Carrera Cup’s attempts to navigate the wet GP circuit.

On the out-laps to the grid, Ingram skated off the road at Surtees. No grip. But still, surely from one place back at the start he could get past a BMW that would be bound to be slithering around in the early laps, and build a cushion for title number two…

Ingram could sense an opportunity for the title after storming drive to win race two, but it went awry with the weather in the showdown

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That did indeed appear to be the case. From the reversed-grid seventh, he was already past Hill at Paddock for sixth, then surged past Cammish off Clearways for fifth. When Turkington got bumped wide by Taylor-Smith at Druids, Ingram was fourth and now Hill had no one to help him…

“Tom put another set of front tyres on after the two laps to the grid, so at the start of the race he was strong,” said Hill. “He had all the traction in the world for those first three laps, and my pressures were still coming up.

“We’ve done this so many times now, we know what window we need to be in with the car, and Craig [Porley, Hill’s engineer] played a crucial role yet again in delivering me an amazing wet car, as he has done pretty much every time this year. You think about all the wet races I’ve actually won this year, and it’s a huge credit to Craig.”

Sure enough, Ingram was soon floundering. That Hyundai has been absolutely mighty all season, and it’s easy to forget that there was one occasion when it looked distinctly mediocre: in wet qualifying at Snetterton in May. Clearly there is a window of wetness that the car just doesn’t like. Hill went past on the fifth lap of 15 to grab third place, and by the finish Ingram had dropped behind Cammish and Turkington for a distant sixth.

“Just a massive lack of grip, so I couldn’t get it stopped, I couldn’t turn it, I couldn’t get off the corner,” mused a desolate Ingram. “I just felt like I was on an old tyre right from the get-go.

“Frustrating, disappointing, but it’s one race out of 30, isn’t it? It’s just that this one race out of 30 was the one we needed. I don’t think we can be disappointed overall with this year because we’ve done fantastically.”

Up front. Well, what did you expect? No one bets against Sutton in the wet, especially when he’s armed with a decent amount of hybrid. Sure enough, he dived inside Cook at Graham Hill Bend on the fifth lap, Taylor-Smith’s eagerness to follow through inadvertently stymying Ingram even more by allowing Hill to slip easily past the Vauxhall as it lost momentum.

Hill didn’t need to pass Cook for second, but when the Toyota got sideways at Graham Hill Bend on the ninth lap he was able to comfortably slip through into Surtees.

After an early scare in the wet Hill darted by Ingram to win the head-to-head title finale duel

Photo by: JEP

“Initially I was thinking, ‘God he’s got me, what am I going to do here?’” recounted Hill of his fight with Ingram. “Is he just going to drive off into the distance again like he was sort of doing in race two?

“I thought, ‘Just stay calm’, and I saw that his pace halted after the end of the second lap, and I thought, ‘Hang on, it’s coming, and then it started to swing massively in my favour with the car, and I was just laser-focused with it.”

After passing Cook, Hill saved a huge slide on the GP loop: “To be honest I’d used the tyre pretty hard to get that move done with Tom, and then the car felt so stable I just kept pushing until I got Josh. I just wanted to be safe, to have that security there pointswise. And then the rears started to fall off.

“First of all I thought I had a puncture, and then I just trod really carefully – I went a lot slower through the next four or five corners and realised the rear was OK, it was just going away, and then I kept it calm.”

‘Calm’ is the right word and one that, rightly or wrongly, has not often been applied to Hill in the past. His financial struggle throughout his career is a large contributory factor. With everything in place since his move to WSR in 2022, Hill and his pal Porley have turned a rough diamond into a beautiful gem. As darkness fell at Brands, the champagne-drenched engineer cried amid manhugs: “We finally tamed him, didn’t we?”

Hill celebrates clinching the 2024 BTCC title in the Brands Hatch darkness

Photo by: JEP