BTCC 2024 Preview: Smaller grid, same quality?

The 2024 British Touring Car Championship gets underway at Donington Park this weekend and there are numerous changes to process, along with a few key movers in the driver market. TouringCars.Net has brought you all of the key information in our season preview.

Few changes amongst the title contenders

There have been few changes in the top teams in terms of proven championship winners. Ash Sutton, fresh from having signed a new contract to keep him at NAPA Racing UK until 2026, returns in the Alliance Racing-run Ford Focus ST, targeting a record fifth BTCC title.

Tom Ingram is entering into his fourth season in the EXCELR8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback, and like Sutton’s team there has been no change to his line-up of team-mates.

West Surrey Racing has also retained its top drivers, with Laser Tools Racing’s Jake Hill aiming for a maiden title having ended 2023 as the best BMW driver, whilst Colin Turkington heads into his 20^th season in the BTCC aiming for a record fifth title.

The only outfit with a potentially outright title-challenging change is Speedworks Motorsport. Having run three cars last year, it’s all change at the Chesire team as it also expands to run four Toyota Corollas for the first time.

2012 World Touring Car Champion Rob Huff is the biggest addition to the series, spearheading the factory Toyota charge, with Andrew Watson moving over for his second year in the BTCC. The team have worked hard in the winter to ensure that straight-line speed and cooling issues from last year do not blight them in the Corollas sixth season.

Josh Cook and Aiden Moffat team up once again, running with many of the backers from last year and bringing the grey, yellow and black livery previously sported by One Motorsport to a new satellite Speedworks team.

What about the rest of the runners?

With few changes in the top teams, many race-winning drivers have retained their seats for 2024. At NAPA Racing UK, 2023 race winners Dan Cammish and Daniel Rowbottom have stayed put, along with Sam Osborne, son of team owner Pete, who scored his first outright podium last year.

Adam Morgan heads into his second year with WSR and his fourth in the BMW, although the Lancashire racer is still looking for his first win in Team BMW colours.

WSR could still field a fourth BMW for part of the season, although negotiations remain ongoing. Bobby Thompson tested one of the outfit’s 3 Series’ in the Brands Hatch pre-season test, but couldn’t get the necessary funds together in time to make the season opener.

Power Maxed Racing has kept Árón Taylor-Smith and Mikey Doble on, and reduced to two cars, unable to fill the Vauxhall Astra seat vacated by Watson, who has gone to Toyota.

Tom Chilton won his first race in four years in a rain-affected event at Donington Park last year, although the EXCELR8 driver will be hoping to improve on 14^th in the standings, after only getting into the top ten four more times after the season opener.

Restart Racing brings two ex-Team HARD CUPRAs in for its first season, although Ben Taylor’s squad has plenty of BTCC experience from time working for other teams in the championship.

Northern Irishman Chris smiley returns in one of the CUPRAs after two years away in TCR UK, and is joined by fellow former TCR competitor Scott Sumpton, who is the only driver to début this year.

Following the implosion of Team HARD during the winter due to financial difficulties, a new name has emerged to run one of the remaining CUPRAs.

Unlimited Motorsport, owned by Bob Sharpless, will start the season with a single car for Daryl DeLeon, with this weekend set to see the outfit’s first running in anger after only managing a single lap in the Donington Park pre-season test.

At that test, Sharpless told TouringCars.Net that one of his reasons for being involved was because he didn’t want to see the chassis going to waste, allowing him to continue a relationship with DeLeon which goes back to club racing.

Tony Gilham, the beleaguered boss of Team HARD, has now found a place working as an employee for Sharpless’ fledgling team in the paddock.

Sporting rule changes aiming to reinvigorate close racing

A number of significant changes to the sporting regulations come into play this year.

New tyre rules mean that the driver who wins the opening race, and the following nine drivers, must then select the hardest compound available for the next race, forcing teams to be more strategic in terms of tyre use over the weekend.

However, two events – this weekend’s opener at Donington Park (medium compound) and June’s races at Thruxton (hard compound) – will see drivers using just one specification of slick tyre.

The BTCC’s hybrid system will also step up a notch this year. The Hybrid Energy Management (HEM) System, which gives drivers a set amount of time per lap in qualifying or number of laps of use in the races, will be doubled in power from this year.

With the winner of the previous race, or the incumbent championship leader, not allowed any additional power, the system which replaced success ballast should, in theory, allow the field to be much closer than in the past two seasons.

A new qualifying format is also being introduced. Drivers will be classified into two groups based on their positions in the second free practice session.

Those two groups will then contest separate ten-minute qualifying sessions, with the fastest six cars from each group progressing through to a Q2 top twelve.

All 12 cars in the Q2 session will then take to the track for a ten-minute session, with the fastest six advancing to Q3, which will give those drivers a final ten minutes to decide the first three rows of the grid.

But what about the reduction in grid size?

One of the hot topics during the off-season has been the reduction in the size of the grid. In 2024, 20 cars will start the season, fielded by seven different teams (with some running satellite operations within that entry).

That represents a reduction of seven cars from the 2023 season. However, the majority of that reduction comes from the loss of three CUPRA Leon cars with the demise of Team HARD.

For the first time since 1994 there are no Hondas on the grid with the loss of One Motorsport (and Team Dynamics a year previous).

One Motorsport boss Steve Dudman says the team is on a “planned pause” for 2024, although the Brackley outfit still wants to carry out a development programme on its Hondas.

Power Maxed Racing has slimmed down from three to two cars with its ageing Vauxhall Astras, and WSR has reduced by one BMW from four to three (although that may still change and go back to four during the course of the season).

Whilst BTCC Chief Executive Alan Gow may stress how he wanted to reduce the grid size, and to emphasise quality over quantity, it is still a stark reduction in numbers over recent seasons.

Indeed, over the past 45 years, there have only been five seasons (1986, 1999, 2000, 2005 and 2006) when there has been less than an average of 20 cars on the grid.

Each of those periods represents a troubled time in the BTCC history and one must hope that the current decline does not continue into a new difficult period.

Timetable

Saturday 27 April

15.25    Qualifying

Sunday, April 28

11.30    Round 1
14.35    Round 2
17.25    Round 3