The fine margins that brought a BTCC youth revolution at Brands

Joy and despair. Sport brings both in abundance, frequently to the same people within a few minutes. It’s all about the highs and lows. 

After race two of the British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch, the stated reason for Dan Cammish’s retirement – ‘ignition’ – sounded a little bit vague. He’d been lying second at the time of a seventh-lap safety car to Jake Hill, the reigning champion’s BMW on the hard tyres. Cammish, who’d worked through from fifth on the grid with his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST on softs, would have approximately 15 laps to get around Hill. Surely the race was firmly in his grasp. 

Then the Ford stopped on track as the crocodile of cars got set for the restart, took swipes from both Mikey Doble’s Vauxhall and Aiden Moffat’s BMW that damaged the left-rear suspension, and ended its race on a flatbed truck. 

Half an hour or so later, Cammish is in the garage chatting with ever-cheery Alliance team owner Pete Osborne. “That race I think was ours,” sighs the gloom-laden Yorkshireman. “Jake hung on noticeably well – he seemed really fast on the hards.” 

But that ignition problem? “It was a driver problem,” he adds. “For some reason, when the safety car lights went out very late it caught me by surprise. In a split-second moment I pressed the wrong button… I tried to switch it back on, but the fuel cut-off valve had shut. It’s unforgivable – it’s a race I can’t take back.” 

Osborne, clearly in forgiving mood, interjects: “Let me tell you, everybody makes mistakes.” 

But Cammish is having none of it: “I’m very disappointed for everybody that works so hard. All I can do is try to put it right.” 

There were two first-time BTCC winners at Brands Hatch on Sunday - DeLeon and Rainford - yet a driver error from Cammish stopped him from taking victory in race two

Photo by: JEP

The next garage up in the pitlane belongs to Hill’s team, West Surrey Racing. Here there is joy. Next in the queue behind Cammish during the safety car was Daryl DeLeon, on only his second race weekend with WSR since switching from his Cupra Leon machinery of late 2023 and 2024. And it’s the smiley Anglo-Filipino who was first in line to dispatch Hill once the race finally restarted to take the victory. 

The teenager is basking in the sunshine behind the pits with family, and all are clearly delighted about his sooner-than-expected maiden win from seventh on the grid. 

“When I was sat on the grid, I didn’t really know what to expect, and I got a good start and I thought, ‘Oh, I could be in the lead [eventually] here’,” DeLeon recounts. “Throughout the race I just had to be patient, and then I got into the lead and then it was just head down and focus on the corners. I had boost to the end so that was good, and I just got a gap.” 

For WSR boss Dick Bennetts, such an influx of new talent is a joy. He’s outside the front of the garage when Osborne, still cheery, comes over to shake his hand and enthuse about just that

That was helped in no small part by the hard-tyred BMWs of team-mates Hill and Charles Rainford effectively blocking the path to anyone else coming through via their own battle. Did he see that in his mirrors? “I did! I saw two BMWs side by side and I thought, ‘Cheers boys’. It was just corner focus, keep pushing to build that gap, and I managed to get that gap and then it was just a countdown from there really. 

“My arms are aching a bit because I had some power-steering issues early in the race, but once that was sorted it was just make sure the tyres are all right, keep it on the island and bring it home in P1. It’s honestly such a great feeling. 

“I believe it [the power-steering problem] was a battery voltage thing. It actually got better. Earlier in the race it was knocking it out of my hands mid-corner so I was trying to hustle the car a bit, but towards the end of the race it was OK and yeah… I was so happy to see the chequered flag!”

DeLeon's victory came in just his third BTCC season

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

If Rainford, who had excelled in qualifying on the front row, was disappointed that DeLeon had beaten him to the punch in claiming a first BTCC victory, he wasn’t showing it. And his maiden success, as it happened, came only three hours later. There is a new generation of talent in the BTCC, and two of them – coincidentally team-mates – are now winners. But let’s link this back to Cammish’s mistake…

At the time of that safety car in race two, Rainford had already dropped from second to fifth on his hard tyres. But Cammish’s exit and the sketchy battling on the first lap of the restart suddenly thrust his BMW back up into the runner-up spot. He eventually finished seventh, and it was the top nine in this race who were reversed on the grid for the finale, so it is conceivable that he could have fallen out of this bracket if not for the caution period. Then there was another promising talent, Ronan Pearson… Had the Scot’s move on Rainford into Graham Hill Bend on the penultimate lap not forced his Speedworks Toyota wide, and allowed Josh Cook and his Honda to steam past both of them, things could have been very different. 

Such is life in the BTCC, where events are far more random than in Rainford’s background in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB (and, before that, in historics). But he has adapted like a duck to water. At Donington, he got duffed up in the pack and admitted he had a lot to learn where the racing was concerned; at Brands, he earned himself a reprimand – but no further penalty – for his race-winning pass on Dan Rowbottom.

As a result, Rainford is late back to the WSR garage following his dreaded trip to the TOCA bus, but happy with the outcome. Actually, come to think of it, it’s hard to think of him being anything other than fizzingly effervescent even if he were to have a run of six successive shunts. “He [Rowbottom] just squeezed me towards the inside kerb,” he grins. “It’s touring car racing. I got roughed up enough last time, and I need to understand the limit and that, I understand, is the limit. 

“When Jake was using all the boost [in his pursuit] I knew that if I could just keep him behind for a bit longer we’ve got this done. When Dan [Millard, Rainford’s engineer] came over the radio and said he’s got one lap and I’ve got four, I thought, ‘OK here’s our chance’, so I started boosting the old Beemer up and away we went!” 

For WSR boss Dick Bennetts, such an influx of new talent is a joy. He’s outside the front of the garage when Osborne, still cheery, comes over to shake his hand and enthuse about just that. And for the Kiwi veteran, of course, it’s reminiscent of his days in F3. 

Sunday was a day which belonged to the youngsters, as Rainford claimed his maiden win in his rookie campaign

Photo by: JEP

“He’s a real breath of fresh air,” Bennetts says of Rainford. “He’s taking it seriously. He makes notes in his little book like Colin Turkington [WSR’s four-time champion is also nearby, coaching the team’s Aiden Moffat]. He has a touch of Colin in him… 

“Daryl is also doing the same. That training is how we started with Jonathan Palmer back in the Formula 3 days, and it makes the driver think. These days the data’s in the car, and we can see all of that, but the idea is to make the drivers think and Charles is on the case.  

“Daryl’s coming on strong. Because he’s still learning to give feedback as he was in front-wheel drive last year, we’re trying set-ups on from the other cars to help him see which one he prefers and we’re on the right track now. 

“I like to see the young guys improving. Colin’s a four-time champion, Ash [Sutton] is a four-time champion, Gordon [Shedden]’s a three-time champion, those guys are very experienced. But to have these new lads coming in and helping them to climb that ladder, it’s great to see them get a podium, let alone an outright BTCC win.” 

As Bennetts did with countless single-seater stars, from Palmer to Ayrton Senna to Mauricio Gugelmin, Mika Hakkinen and Rubens Barrichello, he’s enjoying doing the same in tin-tops – as with Turkington back in 2002

While Rainford is a BTCC rookie, DeLeon is the less experienced at a high level, not to mention seven years his junior. Rainford was already established in the highly competitive Carrera Cup when DeLeon started in Radicals and the British Endurance Championship, before his unexpected step into the BTCC in mid-2023. 

“Daryl apparently started off last year with no engineer, so that was a tough beginning,” continues Bennetts. “The good thing is having four cars, he can look at the data from the other cars. ‘You’re braking too early, you’re braking too late.’ Yesterday Daryl was top three through sector two but he was a bit off in sector one, so we said, ‘Forget about sector two, don’t tell us anything about that, we can see what the car’s doing, you’re only two to three tenths off P1. Forget that and think about Paddock, Druids and Graham Hill’, and his engineer can work on that.” 

As Bennetts did with countless single-seater stars, from Palmer to Ayrton Senna to Mauricio Gugelmin, Mika Hakkinen and Rubens Barrichello, he’s enjoying doing the same in tin-tops – as with Turkington back in 2002. Now Turkington is the elder statesman. OK, it’s Moffat he’s coaching, but it’s a benefit to all for him to be around and, of course, the hope is that he’ll be back on board as a driver for 2026. 

Time to leave the joy of WSR’s youth revolution and pack up. But first, there’s Osborne chucking his jacket into his car, ready to set off. To add to Cammish’s misery, he’s had to run the hard tyre in race three from the back of the grid, scoring one point for 15th. But here’s an interesting stat: he’s set the fastest lap of the weekend of any front-wheel-drive car on the hard – 0.3 seconds quicker than Tom Ingram and team-mate Sutton. He’s done all he can do. 

“He came up to me in the garage and put his arms around me, and he was in tears,” Osborne relates of the disaster from race two. “And he set me off too!” 

Joy and despair, highs and lows. How long until the roles are reversed? 

Brands marked a turnaround for WSR after a disappointing Donington opener, and the next round is at Snetterton on 24-25 May

Photo by: JEP