2024 BTCC Donington Park | 7 talking points

1. Tom Ingram becomes first to top Quick Six as top names falter

The first of the BTCC’s new changes came into force on Saturday afternoon with the inaugural running of its Indycar-inspired Quick Six qualifying format. An initial pair of ten-minute Q1 sessions, with the field split in two, would see the fastest six in each go through to Q2 before that got whittled down to a further six for a final “Quick Six” shootout.

It didn’t take long before this new format started to throw up some surprising results, with Team BMW’s Adam Morgan and NAPA Racing UK’s Dan Cammish both failing to make it into the top 12, having been caught out by changeable weather conditions. Meanwhile, Rob Huff was unable to even attempt to set a time in the opening session, after his Toyota Gazoo Racing UK team failed to have his car on the pit apron in time, therefore not allowed to leave the pitlane. 

These hiccups for front runners allowed the likes of Daryl DeLeon and Mikey Doble to score impressive top ten qualifying results, with the two sharing the fifth row, but it would be down to last year’s top four in the points to fight for pole, with Ronan Pearson and Andrew Watson completing the six. Tom Ingram took the title as the first man to tame the Quick Six format with a time of 1:08.099 with reigning champion Ash Sutton completing the front row, just 0.051 seconds behind. Colin Turkington and Jake Hill filled an all-BMW second row as Pearson and Watson rounded out the session in fifth and sixth respectively.

2. Weather wreaks havoc on race day timetable

The inclement weather in qualifying paled in comparison to what greeted the BTCC faithful on Sunday morning. A deluge befell the East Midlands circuit in the early hours and showed no signs of abating as fans began rolling into the car parks. It wouldn’t be until midday that the first on-track action took place (an untimed warmup for BTCC cars to assess track conditions), some three hours after the first support race was due to get started. 

Despite the challenges, the organisers managed to bring together a race day schedule, including a full complement of support categories. By late afternoon, the sun was beaming down on a bone-dry circuit.

3. Tom Ingram strikes first in six-lap sprint

After a morning of delays, the sight of the safety car being deployed before the end of the first lap of the year was not what anyone would have wanted, but that’s precisely what happened as Sam Osborne’s Ford Focus speared off into the tyre barriers on the exit of Hollywood. Lengthy barrier repairs and the need to tend to an injured marshall meant that the first 15 laps of the planned 18 were spent behind the safety car.

With the maximum of three additional laps a six-lap dash would decide the result of round one. Ingram held his lead from the charging BMW pair before controlling the race from the head of the field. Meanwhile, Sutton, who suffered a terrible start off the line, worked his way back up into second before the flag. Jake Hill took the final step of the podium, with Colin Turkington and Ronan Pearson rounding out the top three.

4. Ingram doubles up; Jake Hill fades and hybrid shines

WIth the track now drenched in sun, race two provided the excitement that was perhaps missing from the opening encounter. A typical BMW launch gave Jake Hill the lead heading into Redgate on lap one, narrowly completing an impressive move around the outside of Ingram’s Hyundai.

No safety car interventions this time around meant that there were plenty of opportunities to see whether the changes to the hybrid deployment would have an impact on the racing – the answer? Absolutely. In both races two and three, the number of drivers working their way up through the field appeared to have increased since the hybrid boost’s inception, and it was noticeable that drivers were having to pull off line to defend from a hybrid attack much more than ever before.

The best example of this was Dan Cammish storming his way through the field to come home sixth, despite a last-lap scare when his bonnet came loose – almost identical to the issue teammate Dan Rowbottom suffered in race one. Luckily for Cammish it happened on the last lap and did not go as far as Rowbottom’s complete windscreen blockage, but it’s certainly one for the NAPA Racing UK team to investigate before Brands Hatch.

Back at the sharp end, all signs seemed to be pointing towards a first win of the season for BMW and Jake Hill, but the Laser Tools Racing driver seemed to fade away as the race wore on. Hill lost two positions in half a lap as Ingram and Sutton found their way through, leaving the podium results as a carbon copy of that in race one.

5. Moffat's drive of his career to hold off multiple champions

The final encounter at Donington this weekend was a textbook reverse grid BTCC race, with action everywhere you looked on almost every lap. In a perfect headline-grabbing draw, Rob Huff wound up on the pole but was unable to capitalise on his opportunity (more on that later). Instead, it would be one of the satellite Toyotas coming through to take the win. 

Parked on the rear bumper of Huff for the first portion of the race, Aiden Moffat in the LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ Corolla used his hybrid to perfection to make his way past the works Toyota, with a performance many hailed as one of the best displays in the young Scot’s decade of BTCC racing.

As Huff dropped through the field, Moffat found his mirrors full of eight BTCC championships, with Team BMW’s Colin Turkington and Ash Sutton desperately trying to find a way through. No matter how hard they tried, though, Moffat would not be beaten, holding firm for a popular fifth victory of his BTCC career. The action continued all the way through the field, providing the hardy fans, who had waited so long at the start of the day, with a race more exciting than much of 2023. 

6. Comeback to forget for Huff, works Toyotas disappoint

The failure to get out of the pit lane in qualifying set the tone for Rob Huff’s BTCC return. Starting from the back of the grid in race one, early signs seemed to be positive for the former World Touring Car Champion as he began to work his way up through the field. That all came to a premature end, though, when Huff was reintroduced to the heavy-handed nature of BTCC racing and got caught up in someone else’s incident. Starting from down in 18th place for race two, Huff worked his way up through the field once more and came home in a much more respectable ninth place. 

Huff would line up on the pole for race three thanks to Ingram drawing number nine in the reverse grid draw but would lose the lead off the line to Adam Morgan, courtesy of the superior launch of the rear-wheel-drive BMW. Daryl DeLeon’s stricken Cupra brought out the safety car on lap three, and a mistake from Morgan subsequently allowed Huff to resume the race lead.

Huff would lead for four laps before his Toyota stablemate (albeit under a different banner) worked their way past, and from then it was a downhill ride. While he would probably have taken a sixth-placed finish after his Saturday woes, it was very much a day of “what could have been”. It was par for the course, though, for the works-liveried Toyotas, who spent the majority of the weekend running in the lower half of the field. Andrew Watson was able to score a top ten in race one, but that was as good as it got for the reigning Jack Sears Trophy winner. In contrast, both Moffat and Josh Cook were able to finish in the top ten in all three races in their LKQ-coloured Corollas.

7. Advantage Ingram as Hyundais look quick

Having spent the majority of 2023 chasing the tail of the NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus, Tom Ingram came out swinging in 2024. Right from the off, it was clear he wasn’t happy to settle for second again, and whenever the reigning champion came close to making a move, the Hyundai i30 was immediately closing the door, and often firmly. As a result, Ingram leaves Brands Hatch nine points ahead of Sutton with Jake Hill a further seven back in third. However, it’s worth remembering that Sutton came away from the season opener last year down in ninth place, 32 points off the lead…

There were signs of strong pace across the Team Bristol Street Motors Hyundais, even if Ingram was the only of the quartet able to come away with any significant points. Ronan Pearson impressed in qualifying and held on to come away with a fifth in race one, before any chance of a repeat in race two ended early as he went splashing his way across the sodden outfield.

Perhaps the most impressive feat of the weekend, though, was Ingram setting the fastest lap of the final race on lap 16, despite not using any hybrid boost at all. The fact that the Hyundai could hold that pace for that long will likely raise eyebrows across the paddock and suggest that the team’s link-up with former champions Team Dynamics may already be paying dividends.

Despite the clear pace, the lack of points for Pearson Tom Chilton and Nick Halstead means that BMW lead the Manufacturers' standings, while NAPA Racing UK come away from the weekend at the top of the Teams’ standings. Aron Taylor-Smith and Power Maxed Racing head the Independents tables and Mikey Doble leads the Jack Sears Trophy standings.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.