BTCC Croft 27th & 28th July 2024

COLIN, COOK AND CHILTON CLAIM GLORY AT CROFT
The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship resumed after the five-week summer break for rounds 16, 17 and 18 at Croft in North Yorkshire over the weekend of the 27th and 28th of July. Jake Hill came away from Oulton Park at the head of the standings after he took a last-gasp second race podium and a superb Race Three victory to arrive four points ahead of leading pursuer Tom Ingram. Ingram won the opening bout in Cheshire before backing it up with a second and a fourth to enter the meeting narrowly adrift of the top of the table BMW. Former championship leader Ash Sutton twice fell victim to the stricter loose bodywork rules at Oulton Park, after taking the first race runner-up spot, to slip twenty-four points away from the title race lead. Sutton’s Napa Racing UK teammate Dan Cammish has been scoring consistently of late and he entered the summer break sat in fourth on the leaderboard, eighteen points adrift of his stablemate. A fantastic opening lap on soft tyres from Josh Cook allowed the Toyota pilot to take his maiden triumph of 2024 in race two at Oulton Park and came into the event fifth in the table. Colin Turkington suffered a torrid weekend last time out and lost valuable ground to the top-of-the-championship as he fell back to sixth in the standings, the quadruple champion sitting sixty-five points behind stablemate Hill. Turkington has already tasted victory fourteen times at the North Yorkshire venue and remarkably the last time he didn’t score at least one podium finish during the day was way back in 2003 (!) and the rear-wheel-drive BMWs traditionally like the Croft circuit.

During the summer break, championship front-runners Jake Hill, Tom Ingram and Josh Cook took in some extracurricular racing activities. Hill drove an ex-Laurent Aiello Nissan Primera Super Touring car to a pair of victories at the Super Touring Power 2 event at Brands Hatch in June, whilst Ingram and Cook contested a three-hour Citröen C1 endurance race at Snetterton a week before Croft. Ingram led for a long time before taking the flag in tenth overall with driving partner Ron Johnson, beaten by Cook’s sixth-placed car that also featured Sylvain Rubio and current ITV4 BTCC pundit Jade Edwards on its driving roster.

Free Practice 1:  The opening thirty-five minutes of practice on Saturday saw Tom Ingram's Hyundai top the timesheet by 0.158 seconds Colin Turkington’s BMW and by 0.374 seconds from Árón Taylor-Smith’s Vauxhall, whose weekend had got off to a promising start. Four-time champion Ash Sutton and title race leader Jake Hill were fifth and sixth behind Rob Huff’s official Speedworks Toyota.

Free Practice 2:  A heavy downpour arrived with ten minutes of the second practice session left to leave Josh Cook quickest by 0.212 seconds from Tom Chilton’s Hyundai and the second Bristol Street Motors Hyundai of Tom Ingram completed the top three 0.163 seconds behind his teammate and 0.375 seconds from the top spot. The times from the session determined which qualifying group each driver would be in for Q1, the odd-numbered positions would go first and the evens would form group two.

The groups for qualifying comprised the following:
Group One: Josh Cook, Tom Ingram, Daniel Rowbottom, Rob Huff, Jake Hill, Ash Sutton, Mikey Doble, Aiden Moffat, Darryl DeLeon and Nick Halstead.
Group Two: Tom Chilton, Chris Smiley, Colin Turkington, Adam Morgan, Andrew Watson, Árón Taylor-Smith, Ronan Pearson, Dan Cammish, Scott Sumpton and Sam Osborne.

Qualifying
Q1 Group One (odds): Tom Ingram only needed to do a single push lap to top the standings in Group One, Josh Cook was only 0.080 seconds slower to also book a place in Q2 in the satellite LKQ Speedworks Toyota. Ash Sutton was as committed as ever to go through in third, whilst Jake Hill made light of his single second of hybrid power to progress in fourth. The Evans Halshaw Astra of Mikey Doble Rob Huff were the other pair to advance from the group, Daniel Rowbottom cut a frustrated figure as he missed out in seventh after two laps good enough for quickest and fourth fastest were scrubbed for track limits offences. Darryl DeLeon, Aiden Moffat and Nick Halstead were the others to miss the cut. The Donington Park Race Three winner Moffat has only got out of Q1 once all season.

Q1 Group 2 (evens): Tom Chilton flew round to top the second group with an impressive 1 minute 21.058-second lap. Dan Cammish lost his first attempt to the track limit officialdom and his next lap was briefly fastest before Chilton usurped the Focus by a healthy 0.642 seconds. The BMW of Colin Turkington safely made it through with the third fastest time ahead of Árón Taylor-Smith's Vauxhall. Andrew Watson's Toyota progressed in fifth and Chris Smiley's Restart Racing Cupra also went into the second phase with a promising showing from the Northern Irishman. Adam Morgan toiled as the BMW went out in seventh after a spin and track limit woes, with Sam Osborne, Brands Hatch Indy race winner Ronan Pearson and Scott Sumpton the others to fall by the wayside. The times for the slowest drivers in each of the two groups would be combined to determine the thirteenth to twentieth starting positions. After their track limit misdemeanours, Daniel Rowbottom and Adam Morgan ended up thirteenth and sixteenth respectively and were split by Darryl DeLeon and Aiden Moffat. Sam Osborne, Ronan Pearson, Scott Sumpton and Nick Halstead would be the last four starters on the grid.

Q2: The top six from the two group sessions would be whittled down to the fastest six that would battle it out for pole position in the final section of qualifying and Tom Ingram was quickest again after the ten minutes were over with his sole attempt, his lap was the last of a clutch of quick times to be set with two and a half of the ten minutes left. Colin Turkington's mark put the BMW to the top with just over three minutes left and Ash Sutton went second fastest half a minute later before Ingram's flyer. Rob Huff survived the pressure of a track-limit-induced time loss to get into Q3 for the first time in fourth. Top Independent runner Árón Taylor-Smith also got through to Q3 for the first time in fifth. Dan Cammish was the last to progress in sixth with a time set as a little over a minute remained. Chris Smiley just missed out on a place in the top six with his best qualifying showing of the year to start from seventh after Cammish's late improvement. Group Two fastest man Tom Chilton was frustrated to miss out on the top six shootout after the Hyundai's Q1 pace disappeared to start eighth. Josh Cook went fastest with his first lap but the time was disallowed for the dreaded track limits before going out in ninth, the Corolla having a rough ride across the Clervaux gravel trap as the West Countryman tried to extract a little too much from his Toyota. The second Evans Halshaw Astra of Mikey Doble would start from tenth, whilst championship leader Jake Hill was annoyed to be out after his fastest lap set with four minutes left was scrubbed and he couldn’t replicate the time. Andrew Watson's works Toyota was the slowest of the group in twelfth.
​
Q3: The final ten-minute ‘Fast Six’ battle for pole position saw Colin Turkington produce a mighty lap for his 29th BTCC pole position with four minutes left as he started his recovery from a difficult meeting at Oulton Park that left him sixth in the standings. Dan Cammish was pleased to join the BMW on the front row with 0.173 seconds separating the Napa Racing UK Focus from pole position. Tom Ingram leapt up to third position with a minute to go after aborting his first attempt due to a slide at Tower and was just 0.008 seconds off the front row Ford to bump Árón Taylor-Smith back a place, who kept a spot on the second row in fourth. Rob Huff knocked title hopeful Ash Sutton down to the bottom of the top six as the Focus improved to be just 0.104 seconds adrift of the Toyota with his last lap of the session.

Race One: There were two tyre choices available to the teams for the three races on the day, you had to run the harder option for at least one outing and if you finished inside the top ten on the soft then you automatically had to start the next race on the hards. Poleman Colin Turkington and fellow front-row starter Dan Cammish, both second-row starters Tom Ingram, and Árón Taylor-Smith, sixth qualifier Ash Sutton and championship leader Jake Hill all went for the softs. Rob Huff was the highest placed of those to go with the harder option tyre and the rest of the grid behind Sutton chose to do likewise, with the exception of Hill's BMW. PolemanTurkington rocketed off the line from pole position into a lead he comfortably managed throughout to take win number fifteen at Croft by 1.746 seconds and the victory marked his 70th triumph of a long career in the championship. Cammish had to get his elbows out to hold off a fast-starting Ingram and Taylor-Smith down to Clervaux for the first time but the Hyundai wasn’t to be denied and muscled inside the Focus exiting the second corner Hawthorn. However, Cammish cut the following chicane so Ingram didn’t fully complete the deal until Tower for the first time before going after the polesitter whilst his tyres came up to pressure but the BMW soon steadied the ship with its extra hybrid availability and drew clear of the Hyundai, Turkington having six laps available to him against Ingram's two. Sutton passed Huff at the exit of Tower and closed in on Taylor-Smith's fourth place. The Focus cut underneath the Independent Astra through Hawthorn on lap two and forced the Vauxhall to miss the chicane, which gave Sutton a run on the Irishman towards Tower to complete the move. Hill's BMW was up to ninth on its soft tyres at the end of the opening lap behind Smiley, who had fallen behind the similarly hard-tyred Chilton. The Cupra held off the BMW until lap three when Hill dived up the inside into Tower to move into eighth. Hill took Chilton for seventh on lap four before catching the leading hard-tyred car of Huff and taking away his sixth place at the hairpin for the fifth time. Cook and Rowbottom also passed Smiley on the same hard tyres, Cook with a similarly committed dive to Hill’s under braking for Tower and Rowbottom also got by early on the sixth lap. Sutton closed to within half a second of his Napa Racing UK teammate Cammish but the order remained static behind the victorious BMW, with Ingram taking second and Cammish the final step on the podium. Taylor-Smith secured the top independent prize in a lonely fifth place from Hill's BMW in sixth, with Huff the first of the competitors running the hard tyres coming home in seventh. Cook passed Chilton for eighth on lap eleven and the Hyundai squabbled with Rowbottom on the final lap at the Complex but the Focus ran wide onto the grass in the right-handed element so Chilton held on to ninth place as Rowbottom completed the top ten. Smiley had an off-track excursion at Sunny In on lap eleven to fall out of the points in sixteenth. Darryl DeLeon was in the midst of a tough fight for the last couple of points-paying positions with Andrew Watson, Mikey Doble, Aiden Moffat, Adam Morgan and Ronan Pearson but the Duckhams Cupra copped a ten-second false start penalty to drop him down to eighteenth overall. Bristol Street Motors Hyundai driver Ingram moved into the championship lead after the opening race by three points from Hill with his second place.

Race Two: All those drivers that finished in the top ten of Race One on the softer rubber were required to take the hard tyres for Race Two, which would be the first six cars on the grid. Rob Huff, Josh Cook, Tom Chilton and Daniel Rowbottom at the foot of the top ten were all free to use the soft tyres so their progress was to be watched with interest. A characteristically good launch from the polesitting BMW saw Colin Turkington win the race to the first corner but Tom Ingram dived into the lead around the outside of Tower for the first time as the Hyundai took advantage of the 3-Series’ first-lap vulnerability. Dan Cammish was third into Clervaux ahead of his teammate Ash Sutton, who was on the receiving end of a tap from Árón Taylor-Smith as he tried to fend off Jake Hill’s BMW. The soft-tyred runners soon began to come on strong, with Huff leading the march and the Toyota took sixth from Hill through Hawthorn for the first time, followed by Josh Cook on the same soft tyres. The works Toyota gained another spot at Tower by taking to the outside of Taylor-Smith. After a look to the outside of the final hairpin, Sutton took third from the sister Focus of Cammish into Clervaux as the menacing Huff arrived on their tail and the Corolla promptly took fourth place away up the inside at Tower. On lap three, Turkington was bumped from the rear by a closing Sutton as the Focus defended from Huff approaching Tower and the BMW skated across the grass on the infield before crossing the circuit and falling to eighth. Sutton wouldn’t receive a penalty for the incident despite West Surrey Racing’s protestations. Huff’s Toyota coolly drove around the outside of Sutton at Tower as the Focus was regaining its composure and set off after the leading Hyundai. Cook finally got past the stubborn Taylor-Smith for sixth place at Clervaux on lap three, with Rowbottom also displacing the Astra a few corners later and Turkington’s incident gifted them a further place each. Cook had set the fastest lap on the third time around and took Cammish for fourth at Tower on the following tour. Sutton had also fallen victim to Cook's Toyota later in the lap, just as Huff's works example arrived at the rear bumper of leader Ingram. The inevitable happened at Tower on lap five as Huff went into the lead on the inside without much resistance from the Hyundai, its driver with his eyes on the championship. Cook and Rowbottom passed Ingram at Tower on consecutive laps and both were lapping faster than Huff, the Napa Racing UK Ford driver having picked off stablemate Cammish at the hairpin on lap four and Sutton’s sister Focus less than a lap later. Hill’s day took a turn for the worse on the ninth lap when he spun lightly into the tyres at Sunny Out after an attempted move up the inside from Chilton for ninth place resulted in contact and dropped the former championship leader outside of the points. Once more to West Surrey Racing’s frustration, the Hyundai escaped censure for the incident. Chilton hadn’t been able to make the same progress as the top three on the soft tyres and had become rooted behind a defensive Taylor-Smith and the two BMWs that started ahead of him on the hard tyres. Cook had reached Huff’s leading car by the end of the tenth lap and the fight at the front culminated in a brave move from Cook for the lead on lap thirteen, a move which started at the exit of Tower. The Toyota got alongside through the left-handed part of the flat-out Jim Clark Esses and completed the pass on the inside at Barcroft. Rowbottom moved up to challenge for Huff’s second place and was all over the Toyota on the last lap after saving his remaining hybrid usage but the 2012 world champion held on to claim the runner-up spot some 0.742 seconds behind the victorious Cook, his twentieth triumph in the BTCC. Ingram was the highest placed of those on hard tyres in fourth, just ahead of Sutton and Cammish. Taylor-Smith was the top Independent driver for the second time in seventh, whilst Chilton managed to get between the Astra and Turkington in ninth. Cook’s teammate Aiden Moffat rounded out the top ten and would hope for a favourable Race Three draw from his successful stablemate, with Mikey Doble and Andrew Watson the last two drivers of the twelve with the possibility of being drawn on the Race Three pole. A frustrated Hill finished outside of the points in sixteenth as Ingram moved his points lead out to seventeen and Sutton closed to within ten points of the Laser Tools BMW in third. After West Surrey Racing appealed the non-punishment of Sutton and Chilton for their instances of contact, a review of the cases would take place at Knockhill a couple of weeks hence.

Race Three: For the final 15-lap bout, Race Two victor Josh Cook drew out ball number eight to place Tom Chilton’s Hyundai onto pole position from the Astra of Árón Taylor-Smith on the outside of the front row. Napa Racing UK teammates Dan Cammish and Ash Sutton formed up on row two. Title race leader Tom Ingram and Daniel Rowbottom went from the third row, whilst Race Two runner-up Rob Huff and the victor Cook completed the top eight on the grid on the fourth row. Chilton aced the start to lead from lights to flag after a faultless drive managing the gap to the second-placed Cammish and taking his sixteenth BTCC victory. Taylor-Smith initially held second place into the first corner before starting a steady slide down the order. Championship leader Ingram was the first to demote the Vauxhall with a switchback out of Tower on lap two before Cammish opportunistically passed the pair of them as they both ran off track on the way out of the Jim Clark Esses. Huff also got ahead of Taylor-Smith in the aftermath at Sunny In, whilst Turkington also forced his way through at the Complex so ended lap two in fifth place ahead of Sutton - who’d taken sixth at the hairpin. The BMW had been involved in more nose-to-tail contact with Sutton at the hairpin ending lap one, with Turkington the aggressor this time, as Rowbottom took to the outside of the pair of them before the Northern Irishman dragged past the Napa duo and squeezed across the nose of Sutton to grab sixth place. Turkington’s charge continued on the third lap as he passed Huff with a similar move to Race Two winner Cook’s earlier manoeuvre at the Jim Clark Esses. Sutton grabbed fifth from Huff at Tower on lap six before the Focus copped a whack at Sunny In. Sutton's Focus didn’t lose a place as the Toyota chose not to pursue the move, whilst Cook pounced on Taylor-Smith at the Complex as Hill now loomed large in their mirrors. The erstwhile title race leader was also by the Astra on the way out of Tower for the seventh time. The fired-up Turkington BMW reeled in closely-running pair Ingram and Cammish and made his move on the Hyundai at the hairpin at the end of the eighth lap, which included some hip-and-shoulder nudging onto the pit straight but Ingram staved the BMW off into Clervaux. Turkington used his hybrid power to get his nose ahead through the Jim Clark Esses before some side-to-side rubbing on the exit saw both off the road and more meaningful contact at Barcroft sent the BMW skating down the grass into the tyre wall. Remarkably, Turkington was able to carry on but fell out of the points to seventeenth. There would be no penalty handed out to Ingram for his part in the incident, with West Surrey Racing now tearing their hair out in frustration. Cammish's Napa Racing UK Focus had looked like catching the leading Chilton Hyundai after taking just over three-quarters of a second out of its advantage during lap eleven but Chilton had saved his hybrid to keep the Focus at arm’s length and took an emotional win by 1.504 seconds. Chilton’s championship-leading Excelr8 teammate Ingram chased them home in third. Hill had reached the top six by the tenth lap and relieved Huff of fifth at Tower. Hill then closed in on Sutton and forced the Focus to defend into Tower on lap thirteen and again at the hairpin but Sutton would hold onto fourth to the flag. Huff and Cook placed their Toyotas in sixth and seventh but the Race Two winner had Rowbottom's Focus on his bootlid crossing the line. Adam Morgan's BMW claimed ninth spot, with Ronan Pearson grabbing a welcome top-ten finish. Chris Smiley stole the Independents' category win on the last lap after the two Evans Halshaw Astras' battle got physical through Barcroft on the penultimate lap and sent Mikey Doble out into the boonies but the pair were back together, along with Scott Sumpton’s Cupra, at the last corner. They had also been caught by Turkington’s battle-scarred BMW and the Northern Irishman beat Sumpton and Doble to the line to claim two championship points.

​Tom Ingram left North Yorkshire heading the championship standings by 21 points from Jake Hill, with Ash Sutton lurking another eight points behind the BMW driver. Sutton’s teammate Dan Cammish sat a further twelve points adrift in fourth and Race Two winner Josh Cook stayed fifth with twenty points between the Toyota pilot and the Focus ahead. The Croft opening race polesitter and victor Colin Turkington’s costly contact in the remaining two encounters left him 75 points away from Ingram in sixth.

The BTCC moves on to the spectacular Knockhill circuit next for rounds 19, 20 and 21 on the 10th and 11th of August.