Multiple BTCC winner announces retirement

British Touring Car Championship veteran Tom Chilton is hanging up his helmet from professional racing after this weekend’s 2026 finale at Brands Hatch.

The 41-year-old from Surrey has won 19 races since his series debut in 2002 and took a best championship position of third in 2018 – the same as his peak in the World Touring Car Championship the previous season.

After what should be 562 starts in the BTCC by the end of the weekend, Chilton will instead focus on his family, his businesses, and also plans to compete in historic racing.

Chilton, who has spent the past five seasons with the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback team, said: “My BTCC career started on the Brands Hatch GP circuit back in 2002 with a podium finish, so having made the decision to bring my time in the series to an end, it feels appropriate that my final race will be at the same circuit.

“There are so many fantastic memories from my time in the series, from that debut podium finish in the Vauxhall through to my time with Arena Motorsport in the Honda and Ford, and then the last decade since returning from the World Touring Car Championship. Being part of Team Vertu [Excelr8] for the last five seasons has been a particular highlight.”

Chilton finished free practice for the Brands GP weekend fifth in the order, with a time set on the final lap.

Tom Chilton, Team Bristol Street Motors Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance

Photo by: JEP

Top of the session was Daryl De Leon, the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport driver who is one of many in contention for fourth in the overall championship plus the Independents title.

De Leon’s late effort dislodged the Excelr8 Hyundai of outgoing champion Tom Ingram, who finished in second place – 0.081 seconds adrift of the Anglo-Filipino.

Another driver to lead the times late on was newly crowned five-time champion Ash Sutton, who ended up third in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium. Sutton is sporting a tribute livery this weekend with his normal race number of 116 replaced by 5 in recognition of his record tally of BTCC titles.

Dan Rowbottom was top of the times going into the final 10 minutes in his CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon with an effort set on medium tyres. That remained the quickest lap of those set on the harder of the two compounds in use this weekend, and a last-lap effort on softs vaulted him to fourth ahead of Chilton and Independents points leader Mikey Doble’s Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon.

Josh Cook was fastest for a long period of the session and ended up seventh in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport, ahead of Aiden Moffat (PMR Audi), Dan Cammish (Alliance Ford) and Dexter Patterson (PMR Audi).