The multiple BTCC title fights to watch amid Sutton's domination

So, we all know that Ash Sutton is going to win the British Touring Car Championship this season, unless he gets beamed up by a passing spaceship. Actually, if that happened he’d probably return to Planet Earth after a spot of time travelling and then, armed with an elixir of youth acquired from a distant constellation, go on to win every edition from 1958 to 2015. The first man to win the BTCC in an Austin Westminster, Ford Galaxie, Renault Laguna, Subaru Levorg, Infiniti Q50 and Ford Focus? Yep, let’s have that!

But there’s plenty to get your teeth into if you look beyond the main championship to the sub-divisions – namely the Independents and Jack Sears Trophy. To this writer, these contests have long seemed a little bit artificial. After all, regarding Independents, what exactly is an Independent? West Surrey Racing with its BMWs has dropped into Indie-land this season, but that’s entirely understandable because it no longer receives (sufficient) support from BMW UK to qualify as a manufacturer team. But then you have Speedworks Motorsport, which does receive backing from Toyota GB, racing its two Speedworks Corolla Racing entries as a manufacturer team, but its sister Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport stable in the Independents. Plato Racing has backing from Mercedes, but is entered in the manufacturer ranks.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s a balance between prestige and having some silverware to chase…

Yet somehow, it has also given us an intriguing title fight. At the end of the Knockhill race weekend, all nine full-season entrants in the Independents were covered by 81 points – the same as the margin by which Sutton leads second-placed Tom Ingram in the overall rankings!

At the top of the tree is Mikey Doble, who has put some distance between himself and his pursuers to the tune of 36 points. The Surrey man is regarded as a real talent in the BTCC. He’s a quiet bloke, not one to make a song or dance about things, but he’s a proper racer – and in that sense, he fits in perfectly with the Power Maxed Racing team. That squad’s new-for-2026 Audi A3 Saloon has been one of the revelations of the season. Doble is an outright race winner (for the second season in succession), his peak at Knockhill was a strong fourth in race two, and he has scored Indie points in every single race.

But… by the law of averages, that means some misfortune could well be around the corner. And, of course, we’re not wishing for anything like the catastrophe that struck PMR this time 12 months ago with the fire that destroyed its premises, hardware and equipment. Doble has always made it clear that he is targeting Indie success – the outright honours are a bonus – but may need to tread a tightrope between now and the Brands finale in October. Does he go for a move to get an outright podium, or preserve Independents points?

Doble has made it clear he is prioritising Indie honours over outright podiums and faces stiff competition in that class

Photo by: JEP

Next up are WSR’s pair of Daryl De Leon and Charles Rainford, the Anglo-Filipino ahead by one point. They had a horrid time at Thruxton, a circuit that has never been a strong point for the BMW 330i M Sport, but the flipside was that their demotion in the points standings meant increased TOCA Turbo Boost for Knockhill – a track that very much suit the rear-wheel-drive machine.

Rainford had 11 seconds per lap of TTB, and De Leon (theoretically) the full 20, and it was a surprise – and a disappointment – that neither of them could improve on the third row in qualifying. Their Knockhill Sunday then started horribly when, in the wet opening race, Rainford was forced to the pits to have a loose rear bumper ripped away and, after his return, he was hit into a spin by Chris Smiley, while De Leon was nerfed through the gravel in contact with Doble. A collision with Dan Cammish in race two forced De Leon into the barriers, although once again he did clamber back on to finish.

Rainford, meanwhile, had charged through to sixth in race two – robbed of further progress by a late safety car – and he and De Leon (from the back of the grid) were fifth and sixth on the unfavourable medium tyres in the finale.

Delve into the lap times from Knockhill, and the pace is there. Rainford was on the same soft tyres as race winner Sutton in race two, and lapped just 0.029s slower; De Leon was just 0.120s off the best time set on mediums all day in race three

“The car was an absolute rocketship and the boost made a massive difference,” fizzed Rainford who, following his outright win at Oulton Park, had eyes on being best of the rest overall behind Sutton and Ingram. “The idea was to be firmly in that third-place fight. OK, I’ve just brought a few points back, but with a bad Thruxton and a bad race one here it’s not quite gone to plan.”

Delve into the lap times from Knockhill, and the pace is there. Rainford was on the same soft tyres as race winner Sutton in race two, and lapped just 0.029s slower; De Leon was just 0.120s off the best time set on mediums all day in race three. And, highly impressively, the team’s Scottish newcomer Lewis Gilbert, whose only competition at Knockhill pre-weekend had been on the circuit’s rally stage, was quicker than both on the same rubber.

Next up? Donington GP and Croft, both traditional BMW strongholds, so Doble will definitely be looking over his shoulders.

There’s a reason why the quickest driver on medium tyres from Knockhill Sunday wasn’t mentioned two paragraphs ago, and that’s because it’s the guy who leads the Jack Sears Trophy – our next topic.

Pattison is fighting on both fronts, but looks more likely to find success in the Jack Sears Trophy

Photo by: JEP

Dexter Patterson sits fifth, one place behind fellow Scot Gordon Shedden, in the Independents, and is engaged in a heated battle with James Dorlin for JST honours. This contest, for those who aren’t dyed-in-the-wool aficionados, is for those who have not scored more than one outright BTCC podium before the start of the season.

Dorlin, as a relative rookie – just over half a season last year with Speedworks – belongs in the JST purely because of his lack of experience. Patterson is now in his fourth campaign in the BTCC, but until this year had never driven a competitive car. But anyone who watched him qualify the Laser Tools Racing Infiniti – a car that had been hugely mis-engineered when success ballast was replaced by hybrid – seventh on the Brands GP circuit in his rookie year in 2022 knew that here was a talent.

Now in the Restart Racing Hyundai team, Dorlin has flourished and his performances at Thruxton were superb. His defence of sixth place from Adam Morgan – the man who would go on to create the headlines at Knockhill – in race two effectively secured him reversed-grid pole. Patterson, alongside Doble and Aiden Moffat at PMR, has also shone on occasion, and his drive of the Audi to fourth in Scotland – with that eye-catching lap time – was excellent. He even thought he could have edged Cammish for third had “I not held myself up a bit” early in the race.

Scottish he may be but, like Gilbert, Patterson had no competition experience on the Knockhill circuit before he first competed there in the BTCC. Can he keep it up? “We’ve been good on the good days but on the bad days not the best,” he surmised. “We’ve just got to try to be consistent and make the bad days not so bad.”

Either he or Dorlin would be worthy additions to a JST roll of honour that includes Sutton, Josh Cook and, of course, their current Independent rivals Doble and De Leon.

Lastly, and to continue a theme, we can’t sign off without the latest example of tiresome track-limits rules application.

Smiley getting pinged for track limits...

Photo by: JEP

Smiley’s Restart Hyundai had given Cammish’s Alliance Ford a hefty old whack at the hairpin as he ploughed his way past into ninth place in race two, so much so that the left-front suspension collapsed on the approach to Duffus Dip. To everyone’s relief, Smiley was able to avoid heavy contact with the barriers and finally came to rest on the grass on the approach to McIntyre’s. Up flashed the message that car 22 (Smiley) was being warned for track limits at Turn 2.

It really does beggar belief that pettifogging pedantry is wasting the time of people who should be paying attention to what matters. Yes, Smiley did miss a corner – but that was while he was trying to wrestle a stricken car downhill to a safe place.

"This is the best championship in the world but I feel it’s being dictated a bit by track limits. I want to be more banzai, I want to be more crazy" Ricky Collard

A few minutes later, Ricky Collard, who had just emerged from a terrific race to third, sounded off: “This is the best championship in the world but I feel it’s being dictated a bit by track limits. I want to be more banzai, I want to be more crazy. Now you drop a wheel over this rubbish, stupid rule of track limits, and the penalty’s too much. We’re having to drive a little bit under, which is a shame.”

You may rightly observe that Collard is one of the most notorious track-limits offenders on the grid (remember Brands Hatch 2023?). But, as he says himself, he wears his heart on his sleeve, and many will be thinking the same way. There must be a better solution.

Moffat finds a creative solution to avoid breaching track limits

Photo by: JEP