2024 BTCC season review

Normal service is resumed 

What made the 2023 season so memorable was its lack of closeness. Ash Sutton had effectively started carving his name from the halfway stage and never looked back. This year, however, the BTCC reset to normal as Jake Hill and Tom Ingram went to the finale at Brands Hatch tied at the top of the points. 

Both contenders had spent time leading the standings across the course of the year, experiencing the highs and lows that a typical BTCC season provides. For Hill, the task was made harder with a disappointing visit to Brands Hatch in May. Picking up only 17 points across the weekend – his worst haul of the year – he sat 36 points back from the championship lead, then occupied by Ash Sutton. In contrast, Ingram’s lowest weekend hauls of the year came at Snetterton and Knockhill, bagging 25 on both occasions, ensuring he kept up his “pointsy” weekends, which he stated would be the difference come the end of the year.

While Sutton was unable to match the heights of his 2023 dominance, he took seven consecutive podium finishes at the start of the season, and finished 12 out of the first 15 races in the top five. While that consistency would keep him close to the sharp end throughout the year, only three victories compared to the eight and six of Hill and Ingram respectively left him on the fringes of the title hunt.

Mathematically, six drivers went into the finale with a shot at the title, but realistically it was only three: Hill, Ingram and Sutton. The latter’s chances flew out the window just two corners into the first race as he was pitched into the Druids hairpin gravel trap on lap one. The two main protagonists then ensured things were as close as possible by sharing victories in races one and two, leaving a straight fight in greasy conditions for the 30^th and final round of the year. 

Ultimately, it would be Hill who came out on top, but you’d struggle to find anyone who’d argue that Ingram would have also been a deserving champion. Just 12 months on from one of the most dominant BTCC performances ever, we were treated to one of the closest finishes the series has ever seen. 

Three years in, is hybrid working?

A lot has been spoken in recent years about the impact of the hybrid boost and whether it was making any noticeable difference in the competition when compared to the previous success ballast of the previous generation. Now, three years into the programme, it’s probably a fair time to take a look at whether it has improved the show or not. This writer’s opinion? Yes it has, but perhaps not in the way that it was intended.

It’s hard to deny that one of the biggest selling points for success ballast was how much the results would be shaken up, as would be evident by some of the lesser expected drivers working their way to the top step of the podium. Some of those drivers are still winning today, of course, thanks to the reverse grid draw of race three, but as a general rule the cream is very much rising to the top in the opening two races of each weekend. 

In the first two seasons of hybrid technology, it made headlines for the wrong reasons – it was barely noticeable. Now, though, it seems like the organisers have reached a happy medium with the way it’s being implemented. There is evidently enough power to make overtaking easier, but we’re not seeing the undefendable “glide past in a straight line” type of moves you get with DRS in Formula 1.

Not only has hybrid helped increase the number of realistic overtaking opportunities, it’s also added a rather interesting tactical element that previously the series was somewhat lacking. Pitstops won’t be returning any time soon, so outside of a straight 25-minute sprint with soft tyres potentially falling off a cliff, the decision of when to use your hybrid (particularly the limited amount for front runners) has added something else to keep the mind working throughout the day. 

Power Maxed comes to the fore

The Independents’ championship had been Josh Cook and One Motorsport territory since the 2022 season, but with Cook moving to the newly-formed satellite Speedworks Toyota team, a door opened for a new name to reach the peak. 

Only five entries battled for Independents honours this season, across three teams and two brands of car – the Vauxhall Astra and Cupra Leon. That tally marks the smallest Independents category in the series since 2001, although that season saw no official Independent championship held, meaning you have to go back to Matt Neal’s win in 2000 for a champion competing against fewer cars – only ever racing one other independent driver at a time.

In the field this year were two Vauxhall Astras from Power Maxed Racing and a trifecta of Cupra Leons, two entered by BTCC newbies Restart Racing and the third by a much scaled-down Team HARD. To say the championship was a walkover for Power Maxed Racing would verge on being the understatement of the year. Aron Taylor-Smith took 20 of the 30 winners' trophies home across the year, with seven more going back with team-mate Mikey Doble. Not only did the pair cruise to an Independents double, but Doble also took home the Jack Sears Trophy, having won 50 per cent of those contests, too.

What was most impressive for the Vauxhall outfit, however, was its gradual rise through the field throughout the year. It was mostly noticeable throughout the second half of the season, Taylor-Smith and Doble regularly fighting to be in the final of the Quick Six qualifying and the latter a thorn in the side of the title protagonists in the closing meetings.

Taylor-Smith also goes away from the 2024 season as the most consistent driver of the year. One of only two full-time competitors (the other being NAPA Racing UK’s Dan Cammish) to be classified in all 30 races, the Irishman was the only man to finish in the points in each of those contests. Seventh in the final table doesn’t quite do justice to the season ATS enjoyed, and hopefully we’ll be seeing more of him at the top of the standings in 2025.

BMW reclaims Constructors crown

When Ash Sutton and Ford came along in 2023, it ended the most dominant stretch in BTCC history, as BMW and West Surrey Racing had notched up seven straight wins in the Constructors’ title. Not since Triple Eight Racing swept the floor with everyone in the early 2000s had a team and marque been so successful.

Re-energised for 2024, BMW was desperate to reclaim its position at the top of the table. Helping its cause was not only the consistency of its two lead drivers, Jake Hill and Colin Turkington, but also the subdued nature of Sutton’s season and the quiet one of Dan Cammish.

Sutton and Cammish racked up a combined 23 visits to the podium, while Hill and Turkington enjoyed 27 combined trips. While the figure isn’t that different, 13 plays four when you consider race wins. It was a close fight across the course of the season, but the reality is the BMWs simply looked much stronger all year than their Blue Oval rivals. Only Sutton could really squeeze a strong result out of the Focus in 2024, while Cammish, Dan Rowbottom and Sam Osborne had solid if unspectacular years.

While BMW may have reclaimed the Constructors’ title, the four Fords easily secured a third consecutive Teams’ title for NAPA Racing UK – helped in part by Jake Hill’s points counting towards Laser Tools Racing rather than Team BMW.  

Toyota disappoints

When Toyota announced it was expanding its programme in 2024 to four cars, two under the works Toyota Gazoo Racing UK banner and a pair of satellite entries, also run by Speedworks Motorsport, there was an air of expectation in the air. With the services of 2023 breakout star Andrew Watson snapped up from Power Maxed Racing and former World Touring Car champion Rob Huff secured, Toyota was really making a statement of intent in the off season.

Unfortunately, that statement was never really followed up, and the works team would end up 130 points behind the satellite entry by the end of the year. You can perhaps give them the benefit of doubt, given the LKQ Euro Car Parts team of Josh Cook and Aiden Moffat was effectively a plug-and-play from the ashes of the old One Motorsport/BTC Racing squad. Cook and Moffat each have much more experience in recent BTCC machinery than Huff and Watson combined.

Even taking that into account, though, it’s never a good sign when your satellite team is beating the works squad (see Ducati and Jorge Martin in MotoGP). Two wins showed that Huff still has it when it counts, but both came thanks to reverse-grid draws. Watson, meanwhile, improved his points tally by 28 on 2023, but there were no breakout performances as seen in his rookie season. If anything, you could argue that Watson had a year in which it was easy to forget he was on the grid at all.

It always seems to be that the Speedworks Corollas are almost there, and go into the off season with potential to improve. The problem is, how long can you keep ending the season with that mindset? And how long will Toyota be willing to have its name attached to a team that’s underperforming? 

If Watson and Huff are retained for 2025 – and here’s hoping they are, as they’re both very good drivers to have on the grid – then results will need to start falling in place. If they do, then the prospect of a four-way fight between BMW, Hyundai, Ford and Toyota is incredibly exciting. The results need to come first, though…