Following a month’s break, the BTCC races resumed at a sun-soaked Croft. Jake Hill topped the standings at the halfway point of the season, with a lead of just four points over Tom Ingram. However, reigning champion, Ash Sutton, had a poor meeting at Oulton Park and found himself dropping to third in the standings, over twenty points behind the leader. 

Qualifying

Hill could only qualify 11th on Saturday thanks to a combination of limited hybrid use, but more importantly, a questionable track limits decision. However, after a poor meeting for Colin Turkington last time out as well, he bounced back with a superb pole position at one of his favourite tracks and he was joined at the front by Dan Cammish. Ingram claimed an impressive 3rd given his hybrid allocation, with Árón Taylor-Smith, Rob Huff and Sutton completing the top six. 

Race One, 4.5/10 – Colin Turkington, Tom Ingram, Dan Cammish

• Huff was the only driver in the top six not to start on the favoured soft tyre and Turkington used his to get away well from the line, although by the end of the lap, Ingram was right on his tail after his pass on Cammish. 
• Sutton made a couple of positions on the opening laps, but Ingram was continuing to make Turkington work for his advantage, while there was a good scrap between several cars for 11th.
• Meanwhile, Hill, who was also on soft tyres, was charging through the field and on lap 6, he was sixth, following a pass on Huff at the hairpin. However, Hill found Taylor-Smith just too far away to challenge and he ended his move up the field here. 
• By lap 9, Turkington had edged out his lead to just over a second as the top four were about equi-distant from each other, although from here on in, Turkington looked more and more in control as his advantage grew. 
• There was a good battle for the final point between four cars, but Sutton also challenged Cammish for the final podium spot, but to no avail.

Race Two, 7.5/10 – Josh Cook, Rob Huff, Dan Rowbottom

• This race was all about who was on soft tyres and if you were on them, the general rule was you did well. Following the top six, bar Huff, of the opening race all starting on them, it meant they all had to put on the hard, except Huff.
• Turkington initially got away well, although Ingram took the lead with a stupendous move around the outside of Tower. Huff, meanwhile, was already a couple of places further up thanks to his tyre advantage. 
• The second lap saw Sutton ahead of Cammish and a lap later Sutton rammed into the back of Turkington under braking at Tower, forcing Turkington off onto the grass and, as a result, Huff nipped ahead of them both. While Sutton resumed in 3rd, Turkington was 8th and he spent the rest of the race staring at the back of Taylor-Smith’s Astra before losing out again to Tom Chilton with a lap or so remaining. 
• While a great battle was occurring to get into the top ten, Huff was taking the lead at Tower with a great move down the inside of Ingram on lap 5. It was a move copied by Josh Cook, who’d started 8th, and then Dan Rowbottom, who’d started 10th, on consecutive laps as Ingram fell from 1st to 4th. 
• Taylor-Smith wasn’t just holding up Turkington, but Hill and Chilton too. Eventually, Chilton went for a small gap on Hill at Sunny Out, but powered into the side of Hill sending him into the barriers. Although Hill resumed, he was out of the points scoring positions. 
• At the front, the top three had a huge advantage over the rest of the field and Cook was pressuring Huff for the lead. With two laps to go, the pair powered through the Jim Clark Esses side by side and with the better line, Cook took the lead to secure his second victory in as many meetings. 

Race Three, 7.5/10 – Tom Chilton, Dan Cammish, Tom Ingram

• Chilton was not penalised for his move on Hill in the previous race, which meant when ball eight was drawn by Cook, he started on pole position for the final race of the day. Taylor-Smith, Cammish and Sutton completed the front two rows of the grid. 
• The leaders got away well, with Ingram swapping positions with Cammish and he was soon battling Taylor-Smith, but as the latter went wide, it also allowed a few more cars through as well as Ingram. 
• By the end of lap 3, Turkington was showing real promise and using his hybrid well to be up five positions after a stunning move on Huff. Similarly, Hill was making good progress, but from further back on the grid. 
• At the front, it was cat and mouse between Chilton and Cammish with the gap increasing and decreasing depending on who was using the hybrid boost. However, Chilton eventually came out the better, helped by Ingram challenging Cammish.
• Sutton, meanwhile, had a queue of cars behind him after Huff had knocked him sideways at Sunny, but he eased off the gas to allow Sutton to retain the position. 
• At the mid-point of the race, Turkington was all over Ingram’s bumper, as the top four were along way clear. After a couple of half-hearted attempts, Turkington went around the outside of Ingram coming out of Tower and through the Jim Clark Esses before a sideways nudge into Turkington’s BMW hammered him into the barriers. Miraculously, Turkington continued, but at the back of the pack before a few late moves earned him a couple of points. 
• They weren’t the only ones to collide as the Vauxhalls of Taylor-Smith and Mikey Doble also had a ding-dong with a lap to go. 
• Hill had been in great form throughout the race and finished 5th – only Sutton’s stout defence prevented it from being higher.

After a good set of races at Croft, the championship pendulum certainly swung Ingram’s way with a trio of top four finishes and he now holds a lead of over twenty points over Hill. 

Hill found qualifying on Saturday tricky, as he should have done with the restrictions for being the championship leader, but he was one of several drivers to have been unhappy at having a lap time deleted for track limits. As such, starting the opening race in 11th was always going to mean damage limitation,  which he did well in climbing to 6th, but race two was the real pain in his weekend. 

While Chilton’s move on Hill in race two would have been applauded in the Super Touring era, the majority of times now would see it result in some sort of penalty, but it wasn’t given. As such, it meant Hill had a big ask in the final race, and he stepped up to the challenge by moving up eleven places. 

Chilton’s move wasn’t the only questionable one on Sunday, with Turkington notably suffering from two incidents. In race two, Sutton clearly ran into the back of him, forcing him over the grass and wide. We have been told over and over that you cannot push to pass, yet this was okay? 

This was followed by Ingram nudging into Turkington in the final race of the day as the pair entered Sunny, with Turkington smashing into the barriers as a result. While this incident realistically will have ended Turkington’s faint title hopes [gets earlier every year – Editor], despite his 70th BTCC win, and 15th at Croft, in race one, any penalty for Ingram could have impacted his title charge. Although the TV angles didn’t show the full incident clearly enough, it did appear to be more of a racing incident with two drivers at full pelt, rather than a malicious move or driver-error punt. 

Interestingly, though, when Huff sent Sutton sideways at Sunny, he took his foot off the pedal and allowed Sutton to recover and retain his position. Out of the incidents on Sunday, it’s possible that Chilton could have done similar too. 

Although Sutton still had an impressive set of results over the weekend, the gap to the championship leader has still edged out further and he will be hoping for another strong weekend at Knockhill and hope that Ingram suffers at least one poor race result. While the NAPA Fords remain a formidable outfit, they do seem to have lost the ultimate peak performance that we have seen, especially from Sutton, last year. This season, they have only won one of eighteen races compared to eleven of the eighteen in 2023. 

Two of those wins came at Croft, but this year we are really starting to see the power of the hybrid, as this was another meeting that saw its effectiveness, making consecutive wins harder to come by. 

This was also added to by having a difference of tyre compounds that were two apart as the options were soft and hard, with no medium available. Many thought the difference could have been worth up to two seconds per lap, but although it wasn’t quite that, it was a significant difference, as seen by race two. More of the same, please!

The next round will take place at Knockhill in and after the meeting the championship picture will become a lot clearer with just nine races left. Right now, you would suggest there are four serious contenders, but will that be the same after the trip to Scotland?

BTCC Drivers’ Championship after 18 rounds

1.	Tom Ingram	253 points
2.	Jake Hill	232
3.	Ashley Sutton	224
4.	Dan Cammish	212
5.	Josh Cook	192
6.	Colin Turkington	178