Tom Ingram and Ash Sutton headed to the season’s penultimate meeting at Silverstone as the 2025 championship contenders. Ingram has steadily been increasing his lead in recent meetings and he arrived in Northamptonshire with a 32-point lead. To make the final meeting as interesting as possible in a couple of weeks, Sutton needed to eat into the deficit, but would he? 

Qualifying

For the second meeting in a row, rain played a part in the session, but with the lowest amount of boost available, Ingram could only manage 14th and Sutton didn’t manage much better in 12th. There was also drama for both of their teammates as Tom Chilton and Dan Cammish both failed the ride height checks, meaning they had to line up at the back of the grid. 

At the end of the session, there was a new pole sitter in the BTCC as Daryl DeLeon put his BMW at the front of the grid, where he was joined by a season’s best for Gordon Shedden. Jake Hill and Dan Lloyd lined up on the second row, while Josh Cook and Senna Proctor completed the top six. 

Race One, 6/10 – Dan Lloyd, Jake Hill, Gordon Shedden

• DeLeon zoomed away off the line, while Hill who had initially looked like overtaking Shedden, lost out to Lloyd as he was blocked. As the front two battled on the next lap, a lock up from DeLeon, and Shedden being slow onto the Wellington Straight as a result, meant that Lloyd was able to take the lead of the race.
• Sutton and Ingram had both moved up three spots after the opening couple of laps, but on lap 4, Ingram found a way by Sutton and the pair moved slightly more forward as they finished seventh and eighth.
• Hill, meanwhile, was busy taking second from Shedden across the line on lap 5 and Proctor had moved up to fourth. Hill then set about Lloyd, but despite a couple of attempts, he was unsuccessful. 
• The race had a decent amount of overtaking, but was practically ended on lap 18 as Nic Hamilton’s Cupra suffered a large fire. The fire truck was called for, but with the nature of the fire, the race ended under the safety car, meaning Lloyd was the twelfth different winner of the season. 

Race Two,  6/10 – Tom Ingram, Ash Sutton, Jake Hill

• The top five all started on the medium tyre and in a chaotic start where several cars went wide and back on, Hill was the new race leader with Ingram and Sutton up at the sharp end too, with Ingram taking second from Lloyd on the second lap. 
• It didn’t take long for Ingram to pass Hill with the help of boost and Sutton was up to third not long after with passes on Shedden and Lloyd. 
• Ingram had made a good lead by lap 8, when Chilton, who’d made up ten places to be tenth, collided with Charles Rainford which resulted in Chilton breaking his front end and off he went into the gravel forcing a safety car period. 
• After six laps, racing restarted and while Ingram tried re-establish his lead, Adam Morgan’s bonnet flew open after contact with Proctor and within a few laps, Sutton passed Hill for second. 
• There was plenty of late action with several overtakes and Dan Rowbottom retired from fourth after his Focus started smoking with a lap and a half to go. 

Race Three, 6.5/10 – Sam Osborne, Josh Cook, Ash Sutton

• Ex-Formula One and BTCC commentator, John Watson, performed the reverse grid draw and he performed the biggest shake up possible by promoting ball twelve of Sam Osborne to pole. Mikey Doble, DeLeon, Josh Cook and Aiden Moffat completed the top six, but DeLeon had to be pushed off the grid due to a drive shaft issue. 
• As the lights went out, Osborne made a clean getaway, with Moffat moving up to third, while several cars were wide and back on at Copse Corner. By the end of the lap, Sutton and Ingram were sixth and seventh in a good start for the pair.
• With an almost identical move to race two, Sutton moved ahead of Hill for fifth on lap 2, while on the next lap Doble lost places to Cook and eventually Moffat, before Sutton, Hill and Ingram also succeeded shortly after.  
• Lap 5 saw Sutton make his now signature move at Brooklands on Moffat for third, but despite trying to make more progress, he remained in position for the remainder of the race. 
• With ten laps gone, Cook seemed as close as ever to Osborne, who was having to defend for his life and Osborne did it well. Similarly, Ingram was desperately trying to overtake Rowbottom for sixth and on lap 16 he managed it. 
• After lots of pressure, a small mistake from Cook meant that Osborne had breathing space for the final couple of laps to secure his first ever BTCC victory, while a Moffat error meant Hill and Ingram moved up a place to fourth and fifth. 

Is it now Ingram’s championship to lose at Brands Hatch GP? You’d have to say so. As hard as Sutton tried, he couldn’t claw into Ingram’s lead and although the pair had relatively good, and similar, weekends, Ingram still increased his lead by a point to 33. 

Sutton is going to need maximum points in race one – 20 for the win plus pole, fastest lap and lap leader – and Ingram to have a catastrophic failure to realistically be back in the fight. That seems unlikely,  but in the BTCC, you just never know. 

Another thing going against Sutton in the opening race is on a lap like Brands Hatch GP, having the second lowest amount of boost in qualifying is unlikely to help secure a high grid spot, as seen this time at Silverstone. The good news is that Ingram has even less, of course. 

So, teammates and team orders to the rescue? We’ll have to see, but both of them will be giving it everything and while Sutton has a mathematical chance, he’ll be driving the wheels off the Focus, in what is rumoured to be its last appearance on the grid as NAPA look to switch cars for 2026. 

If Sutton, or either of the Dans fail to win at Brands and Osborne’s win in the Focus is its last as BTCC machine, that would be quite a warming story as the team owner’s son who has worked hard for years wins his first in the car’s last. 

Whatever happens at Brands, both Ingram and Sutton will be hoping that their championship isn’t their last.  To Brands we go! 

2025 BRITISH TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER 24 OF 30 ROUNDS

1.	Tom Ingram	419 points
2.	Ashley Sutton	386
3.	Dan Cammish	275
4.	Jake Hill	271
5.	Dan Rowbottom	257
6.	Tom Chilton	212