What to look out for as the 2025 BTCC season kicks off

Faster, but by how much?

The dropping of hybrid from the British Touring Car Championship – with the turbo now solely responsible for producing a similar power boost as an overtaking aid – has slashed 55kg from the machinery. And series organiser TOCA has made sure it keeps the ‘eco’ box ticked by introducing 100% sustainable fuel.

It’s great for the drivers, but has left the engineers with a new set of problems to solve. “It’s funny because you spend so much time getting the car to work with weight,” says Antonio Carrozza, who has been the brains behind the success of four-time champion Ash Sutton, going back to their days with the success-ballast-laden Infiniti Q50 and, since 2022, with the Alliance Racing-run Ford Focus ST.

“Everybody’s going to pre-season testing, and the first time they get in the car they’re going, 'This is brilliant, feels great’. But you have to make that lightweight car better than everyone else’s lightweight car. Initially the hard part is knowing what your benchmark is. What are we actually aiming for? If we’re going three tenths quicker, should we be going half a second quicker?

“And you don’t really know what everyone’s up to. You don’t know where their engine performance is at, where their weight’s at – because you can always run slightly heavier in testing – and what their tyre conditions are like. Until we get to qualifying round one, I don’t think any of us will know how good a job we’ve done.”

After the dazzling 2023 season for the Focuses, 2024 was a step backwards. Probably the biggest area of development over this winter has been from engine supplier Mountune, after the drivers felt that the doubling of the hybrid/turbo power boost for last season translated less effectively to their delivery than others’. Sutton also felt chassis improvements made in the summer break were masked by the soggy autumn race weekends.

“And we were done over by the British weather with the 2024 test programme,” adds Carrozza. “Because it was so often damp or wet the night before, you’d lose half the morning and you’d probably get a couple of hours clean in the afternoon and then it would rain.

“We did five test days last year but we only got about eight hours of proper running. And during that time we’re trying to back-to-back the 2023 car, which for us was our best reference, and try to take steps in different directions, and we never really found anything that worked. 

“When we turned up for 2024 the tyres had changed, and suddenly it’s not quite as rosy as it looked in testing. Everyone else was chasing that bit more, probably because they didn’t have the benchmark they could fall back to. So we were a victim of our own success… 

“I’m confident with what we’ve done this winter. It’s been a really good step for us, but is it going to translate onto the circuit?”

New boy Rainford (here with WSR chief Dick Bennetts) has shone in tests

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Bigger grid with new talents

The boost from 20 cars to 24 on the grid for this year’s British Touring Car Championship is a great result in a difficult economic climate. And it’s a figure that series boss Alan Gow hankered for during the days of grid-busting surplus when, let’s be honest, some of the drivers were arguably a bit… meh.

“As you know, that’s the number I always think is ideal – 24 is perfect,” proclaims the Australian. “And I don’t think there’s anyone on the grid who isn’t there by right – they’re good-performing drivers.”

One encouraging aspect is the influx of young, new talent to the grid. There are eight drivers eligible for the Jack Sears Trophy, for those with a maximum of one overall podium finish. While Daryl DeLeon (West Surrey Racing BMW) and Ronan Pearson (Speedworks Motorsport Toyota) have already made an impression, debutants include their respective team-mates Charles Rainford and James Dorlin, plus hot Mini Challenge prospect Max Hall in an Un-Limited Motorsport Cupra.

“I don’t think ‘Flash’ would like to be called ‘old guard’! He’s a three-time champion and it’s great to have such a well-known racer and champion on the grid. His reputation speaks for itself” Alan Gow

“There’s a lot of new drivers that have never been linked to the BTCC before,” continues Gow. “You always need new talent. That proves the value of the series.”

Some deserving cases, however, will not be present. Mini talisman Dan Zelos shone on his late-season outings in 2024 but has been unable to convert that into a BTCC seat this season, while underdog crowd favourite Bobby Thompson is still priced out of the series.

At the opposite end of the scale, commercial pressures have kyboshed four-time champion Colin Turkington and played their part in 2012 World Touring Car king Rob Huff not staying on. But, in Huff’s stead at Speedworks comes Gordon Shedden to carry the flame for the old guard.

“I don’t think ‘Flash’ would like to be called ‘old guard’!” chortles Gow. “He’s a three-time champion and it’s great to have such a well-known racer and champion on the grid. His reputation speaks for itself.”

It’s been an off-season of very minor tweaking to the sporting regulations. Last year’s obligation for the top 10 in race one to run the hardest available remaining tyres from their allocation in race two did little other than to prove that soft tyres are quicker than medium, which are faster than hard. This has now been reduced to just the top three. “Every year we’re tweaking things, and this just mixes it up a little bit more,” explains Gow.

The three-stage, IndyCar-style qualifying format remains. Last year’s big drop-off to 20 cars made it an unfortunate time to introduce the concept, but this time around – with 24 – the jeopardy in Q1 will be much greater.

“All the drivers loved the format last year, and it did what it was meant to, but it could have been a bit better,” admits Gow, “but with 24 on the grid it will be great.”

Ingram leads team-mate Chilton in testing. But he could do with damp running

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Can Ingram solve damp despair? 

Tom Ingram used to be irksomely described as ‘the nearly man of the BTCC’. After winning the 2022 title to put that one to bed, he’s followed that with two successive runner-up positions!

The greasy conditions in the Brands Hatch finale snatched the 2024 crown from his grasp, the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N reprising a lack of pace it had exhibited on a similarly damp track at Snetterton in qualifying earlier in the year.

One key to the Hyundai’s great step forward in 2024 had been three days of testing in March at an uncharacteristically sunny Anglesey. If Excelr8 headed back there in October, surely it would get some iffy conditions to vanquish its bugbear on a slippery track…

“Unfortunately we didn’t!” exclaims Ingram. “It’s typical – it was dry again.

“In the dry last year we were stonking, in the full wet we were good; it’s just in those slightly greasy conditions… Going through all the bits and pieces we’ve seen over the winter, we’ve got a checklist of stuff that we’re 70-80% certain is it. We just want to validate it more than anything else to confirm what we think. We could do at some point with some drizzly rain in testing.”

The three days of Anglesey running, with the car in hybrid-free 2025 spec, “was really useful for us. It was good to try some bits and pieces you’d maybe been putting off as the year’s gone through.”

As one of the most cerebral of the BTCC drivers, Ingram does have concerns about the power boost – equivalent to last year with hybrid – now coming solely from the turbo: “I think it won’t be as effective, because you have to build pressure, whereas before you were using electricity which is always going to be instant.

“We’ll see how it pans out, but unfortunately it’s going to be another one of those things that gets tweaked as the year goes through as we all learn together.”

Restart team-mates Smiley and Lloyd (right) have been pals since 2018

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

A new war of Independents

After a quiet 2024, the Independents’ class is shaping up nicely: eight entries representing four models of car from a quartet of teams.

The M-Sport-built TOCA engine will be powering the One Motorsport Honda Civic Type Rs of Josh Cook and Stephen Jelley, the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Mikey Doble, plus the trio of Un-Limited Motorsport Cupra Leons piloted by Max Hall, Dexter Patterson and Nic Hamilton. But Restart Racing’s move from the Cupra to new-build Hyundai i30 Ns comes with a switch to the same-spec bespoke Swindon-tuned units as car-builder Excelr8 Motorsport.

Restart duo Chris Smiley and Dan Lloyd both have experience of the Hyundai from their respective stints at Excelr8, and Lloyd drove one to three victories in 2022 – with the Swindon unit. They will likely be a thorn in the side of Cook’s quest for a third Indie crown.

“With the Hyundai and the Swindon engine, it was something I couldn’t turn down and I had to make sure I made it work. Going from what I had to this opportunity, it means so much more” Dan Lloyd

“I’m mega-excited in general,” gushes Yorkshireman Lloyd, who is returning to the series after a year in Carrera Cup GB. “From my side, I nearly stopped racing completely at the end of last year, which would have been the biggest decision of my life, and then this opportunity presented itself to me.

“With the Hyundai and the Swindon engine, it was something I couldn’t turn down and I had to make sure I made it work. Going from what I had to this opportunity, it means so much more.”

Lloyd is anticipating a good battle in the Indie division. “The whole grid looks strong all over,” he states. “It’s gone from being a bit quiet to a really competitive field, so that’s good for the championship.

“Obviously we haven’t got the hybrid anymore, so that will mix things up in terms of set-up, but having a year out I’m coming in with a fresh mind, so I think that will help. There’ll be a lot of trial and error but I’ve got a strong engineer. If we can win the drivers’ and teams’ in the Independents, and get some overall podiums, that would be fantastic.” 

Un-Limited Motorsport man Hall is a promising talent

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images