Scotland was the next port of call in the 2026 season of the BTCC, marking the start of the second half of what has been an Ash Sutton dominated season. He arrived with a huge lead of fifty-nine points over his closest rival, Tom Ingram. Sutton’s teammate, Dan Cammish, was a further seventeen points behind in third.

Qualifying race

In Saturday’s qualifying race, Sutton surprisingly started down in sixteenth, although he climbed to eleventh, but Ingram only faired slightly better in ninth. At the front, most of the drivers maintained their starting positions with Adam Morgan securing a lights to flag victory for his first pole position since Rockingham in 2018. 

Local hero, Gordon Shedden, lined up alongside him on Sunday, with the other Plato Racing Car of Dan Rowbottom next. Chris Smiley, Charles Rainford and Daryl De Leon completed the top six, but after going well at Thruxton, Josh Cook started from the back after crashing into the barriers following a small touch with Árón Taylor-Smith.

Race One: 7/10 – Adam Morgan, Dan Rowbottom, Gordon Shedden

• On a very damp track, Shedden had the better start off the line and was alongside Morgan, but couldn’t do anything to take the lead and ended up squabbling with Rowbottom. Rainford made a place off the line as Smiley fell backwards on the first few laps, which included when he was three wide with Sutton and DeLeon as the former took seventh. 
• On lap 3, Dexter Patterson and Tom Chilton touched, with Chilton managing to get out of the gravel trap before a safety car period was needed. At the front, Rowbottom’s first attempt on Shedden was unsuccessful, but not his second one as he made it a Plato Racing 1-2. 
• Sutton continued to make moves forward and over the next few laps he overtook De Leon, who lost several positions, including to Ingram and Cammish, but the latter was given a ten second penalty for a false start. At the end of lap 10, Sutton had managed to secure fourth from Ricky Collard as his car seemed to have a huge amount of front end grip. However, fourth was as far as Sutton made it. 
• Before the safety car was needed to recover the gravelled Lewis Gilbert following a bit of tit-a-tat with Cook, Ingram had secured fifth with moves on Rainford and Collard with the use of boost.
• After the re-start, with a few laps remaining, Morgan bossed proceedings to bring home Plato Racing’s first ever race win, with Rowbottom adding the cherry on the cake with his second place. 

Race Two: 4/10 – Ash Sutton, Dan Rowbottom, Ricky Collard

• With the track now dry, Rowbottom jumped Morgan off the line, with Sutton also trying to overtake him, but Morgan was able to fight back, until after the safety car period to recover Aiden Moffat’s stricken Audi. However, before that, going into the chicane, Ingram ran into the back of Shedden and despite it looking innocuous, he had to pit and retire the car. 
• On lap 8, Collard took fourth from Shedden with a lovely move on the inside, while a couple of laps later, Sutton took the lead at the hairpin with a touch of boost to make sure. 
• At the halfway point, Shedden had a huge train of cars behind him, sixth to fourteenth, with Dexter Patterson trying to be the main beneficiary. Within the pack, there were battles too and soon Rainford came from starting at the back to seventh after overtaking Patterson and Cammish in successive corners, before getting Shedden too.
• As Collard was busy taking third from Morgan, Cammish and DeLeon collided and it required some neat reversing to keep DeLeon in the race, but after tapping the back of Cammish, Smiley’s front suspension broke causing him to go off at the first corner, resulting in another safety car. 
• The race re-started with a one lap shootout, but it made no difference to Sutton who powered home to race win number seven from seventeen races this season.

Race Three: 7/10 – Tom Chilton, Adam Morgan, Dan Cammish

• After making the least changes to the grid at Thruxton by pulling out ball 6, Sutton made the most changes this time by pulling out ball 12 to promote Chilton, who had the NAPA trio of Lewis Selby, Sam Osborne and Cammish behind him. The top six was complete by Scots, Patterson and Shedden.
• The top end of the grid were away as per order, but in slight contact, Shedden suffered a puncture and really struggled to control his car after half a lap, with others doing well to avoid him. It wasn’t long before Cammish overtook Osborne for third in a move that wasn’t contested. 
• While Sutton and Ingram were making moves forward, Osborne was soon off into the barriers after being touched by Patterson, but like others throughout the day, he was able to escape from the gravel. 
• On lap 8, action started for the podium positions as Morgan overtook Cammish for third, but then the pair of them overtook Selby within consecutive corners – a feat repeated by Patterson and Rainford a lap later. 
• Lap 11 saw Sutton fall down the pack to fifteenth, but by the end of race he’d recovered to twelfth which was his worst result of the season. 
• Meanwhile, Selby was still holding people up, notably Collard and Ingram, but as Collard found a way by, Ingram was pushed wide opening the door for Mikey Doble to take the place, but the pair then did get Selby a lap later. Later on, Ingram overtook Doble for tenth, but didn’t make any further spots as at the front Chilton cruised home to his first win of the season. 

Fifty-nine points has now changed to eighty-one, as Sutton’s lead continues to grow and grow in the championship. It’s been clear for a long time that he will be the 2026 champion, but the question is now how early will he be able to accomplish it? Ingram’s little touch on Shedden in race two really seemed to extinguish any tiny hope he might have had left, which was just a case of bad luck more than anything. 

Despite the championship fight being over, there were still plenty of positives to take from Knockhill in a meeting that produced the best set of races of the season so far. Clearly helped by the short nature of the track with multiple overtaking opportunities, and the weather in race one, it seemed like a weekend that we became accustomed to a few years back. 

A huge bonus was seeing a new team winning a race, in what was unquestionably Plato Racing’s best weekend so far in their short existence. Before the mid-season break, they didn’t seem to have their cars working as they would have liked, but at Thruxton they faired better and at Knockhill, better again. Congratulations must go to all of the team at Plato Racing for their hours of hard work to get the Mercedes cars performing so well*. 

The next meeting sees a return to Donington Park, albeit on the Grand Prix layout. Sutton will be hoping for a repeat performance of two victories and a second from the opening meeting of the season, but the rest of us just want to see more competitive racing like we did at Knockhill. 

*Editor’s Note

This was, of course, before the shocking news this week that Plato Racing had entered administration and then been put up for sale by title sponsor Cataclean. This ultimate lead to Jason Plato being ousted from the team that he helped establish, and bore his very name.

Cataclean have now established themselves as fully in charge of the team, renaming it to CPRL in the process, although still seemingly searching for a buyer. Adam Morgan, Daniel Rowbottom (previously a Cataclean director), will continue to drive for the team.

Most importantly of all, ESM hopes that, having been so open about his struggles with his mental health, Jason Plato is being supported by those loyal to him. 

2026 BRITISH TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS AFTER 18 ROUNDS

1.	Ashley Sutton	327 points
2.	Tom Ingram	246
3.	Dan Cammish	233
4.	Ricky Collard	180
5.	Charles Rainford	169
6.	Mikey Doble	167