There was a stark contrast in weather to the opening weekend of the 2025 BTCC campaign compared to 12 months ago where the circuit was covered in small rivers. Glorious sunshine was available all weekend as the fans, teams and drivers set off on another 30 rounds of action. 

As usual, there are some new rules for the season. A major change is the dropping of hybrid in favour of a power boost system, meaning the cars are now 55kg lighter. All cars are now powered by sustainable fuel and the front three finishers all have to start the next race on the unfavourable tyre are the headline changes. 

Qualifying

After Tom Ingram dominated the two free practice sessions earlier in the day, he went into qualifying as the hot favourite. However, he could only manage second in a NAPA Ford dominated session, with Dan Cammish claiming the first pole of the season.

His teammates, Ash Sutton and Dan Rowbottom lined up behind him on the second row. Ronan Pearson was an impressive fifth with Tom Chilton completing the top six. After struggling in pre-season, reigning champion, Jake Hill, managed eighth.

Race One – 7/10 – Ash Sutton, Tom Ingram, Dan Rowbottom

• A good start from Sutton saw him take the lead after the first corner and further down the field, a couple of positions were swapped. For the next few laps, Sutton and Cammish were able to break away from Ingram. By lap six, the top ten were still in their starting positions other than the front two.
• On lap 7, Ingram had closed the gap and there was just 0.9 seconds between them and it didn’t take long for Ingram to overtake Cammish at the bottom of the Craner Curves. 
• Lap 9 saw a trip on the grass for the returning Stephen Jelley and Gordon Shedden, also returning, had the meatball flag for a damaged Toyota. 
• While Ingram was within 0.3s of Sutton on lap 11, Adam Morgan suffered a puncture and so did Cammish so he pitted immediately, but luckily under the safety car as Chilton had tapped Josh Cook into the tyres at the end of the lap and they needed repositioning. 
• When the race restarted on lap 16, Cook, Chilton and Hill were involved in a great battle which saw Hill pass them both as the other two were more concerned with each other. The front two of Sutton and Ingram immediately put the hammer down and were away. 
• Although Ingram was glued to Sutton’s bumper and gave it a good go, it was to no avail and the four time champion started the 2025 season with a victory. 

Race Two, 4/10 – Ash Sutton, Tom Ingram, Dan Cammish

• The front two got away well with Hill jumping Rowbottom for third. As it started to settle down on the second lap, Mikey Doble received a drive-through penalty and Rowbottom lost another place, this time to Cook. 
• Sutton seemed to be struggling at the front as there were quite a few cars behind him, which meant people started getting antsy behind him and Cook overtook Hill, while Ingram tried on Sutton, but the latter had the racing line and kept the lead. 
• By the mid-point, Cammish was charging forward and Cook had dropped off the leader and worse was to come for him as he suffered a left front puncture on lap 12, while there was similar fate for BMW newcomer, Charles Rainford. 
• While there was plenty of midfield action and moves, the main action at the front was Cammish coming through to take the final spot on the podium. Sutton, meanwhile, won the race without even using his one lap of allocated boost. 

Race Three, 6/10 – Tom Chilton, Tom Ingram, Ash Sutton

• Sutton completed the first reverse grid draw of the season in a slightly modified fishbowl for 2025 and he picked out ball six belonging to Chilton, meaning the grid would only be slightly shuffled. As the lights went out, he sped off to create an early gap, while behind him Ingram and Sutton were up to 4th and 5th respectively, before both passed Hill on the next lap. 
• Things weren’t going well for Hill as after he battled with Cammish for most of lap 3 before losing out, his new teammate, Aidan Moffat, then drove around the outside of him too, before he lost another place to the returning Chris Smiley too. 
• At the front, Ingram had closed down Rowbottom’s gap in 2nd and when it came to the pass, Rowbottom put up very little resistance realising Ingram was a lot faster and Sutton was soon through as well. 
• While Moffat and Morgan battled over 6th, Ingram tried to catch Chilton who was 1.3s ahead. However, as the race drew to a close, Ingram had a bigger battle to deal with to retain 2nd with Sutton all over the back of him. It was a good battle and although Sutton lunged to be ahead, he couldn’t hold his line and Ingram held on to the position with a final lap use of boost. 

From the evidence of Donington Park, the pre-season talk and predictions seem to be true about the strength of the Team Vertu Hyundais and the NAPA Fords, while WSR’s pre-seasons struggles seemed to be real. 

Hill showed fantastic speed, craft and grit to be crowned champion last year, but on the evidence of the opening round, he won’t be retaining it. It’s no secret that BMW have pulled funding for motorsport and that will have impacted WSR’s operations, but the bigger problem seems to be that they are struggling to find a suitable set up for the cars. With the removal of hybrid, the BMWs are struggling to distribute their weight evenly, as the positioning of the hybrid actually helped their cars. As technology has developed, they can’t use old set ups from pre-hybrid as they’d be even slower. 

That said, Hill still came away with a brace of 4th positions and if a suitable set up can be found quickly, he’ll be back in the fight. However, Sutton and Ingram were once again the two standout drivers. Although Ingram didn’t win a race, a trio of second places is not to be sniffed at and he looked very quick. Similarly, double race winner, Sutton, looked to be imperious form. 

Hopefully, it won’t just be a two way fight this year, as last year was fantastic with several drivers in with a shout, although notably we have lost Colin Turkington this year. Even if it is between the same car manufacturers, adding Cammish and Chilton, in particular, to the mix would be fantastic to see. Chilton has been around in the BTCC for such a long time without ever really being a serious championship contender. Could 2025 be the year? 

With nine race weekends still to go, nothing is won or lost on the opening weekend of the season, but there are certainly signs that this could be a very intriguing season at the front end of the grid. Will the picture become any clearer after Brands Hatch? 

2025 BTCC Championship Standings – After 3 rounds of 30

1.	Ashley Sutton	58 points
2.	Tom Ingram	51
3.	Tom Chilton	42
4.	Dan Cammish	37
5.	Dan Rowbottom	36
6.	Jake Hill	32