BTCC Brands Hatch: Taylor-Smith and Chilton top practice

Dubliner Taylor-Smith stamped in a late effort in the cooler conditions of the first session to top the times at the wheel of his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra on a 47.905s.

Mikey Doble left it even later – the final lap of the session – to complete a 1-2 for the Midlands PMR squad with a lap just 0.007s adrift of his veteran team-mate.

In the lunchtime session, it was the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback of Tom Chilton to the fore, by a considerable margin by the standards of the minuscule Brands Indy circuit – the Surrey man’s 48.047s left him 0.171s clear of the Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST of Dan Rowbottom.

Rowbottom caused the only red flag of the 70 minutes of running with nine minutes remaining when he went off at Paddock Hill Bend and “we kissed the barrier”.

The clock was set to allow five more minutes of running, during which the quickest time was set by the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla of Josh Cook, who remained fourth in the session but moved closer to the third-placed Alliance Ford of Dan Cammish.

The overall five fastest times across free practice all came from FP1. Behind the Vauxhalls, Colin Turkington was third in his West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport, which sat atop the times until the closing minutes.

The four-time champion was just ahead of Cook, with reigning title holder Ash Sutton also within 0.1s of Taylor-Smith’s best in his Alliance Ford.

Tom Chilton, Bristol Street Motors Hyundai i30 N Fastback (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Taylor-Smith received a black-and-white warning flag for track limits during that session, and did appear to be running wider at Paddock than most of the opposition.

Chilton’s FP2 topper put him sixth overall ahead of the FP1 bests of Jake Hill (WSR BMW) and Rowbottom, while Cammish was ninth on combined times and Andrew Watson (Speedworks Toyota) was 10th.

Rowbottom’s off was the second of the weekend at Paddock for the NAPA team – 1992 champion Tim Harvey had a whizz in Sam Osborne’s Focus on Friday for the ITV coverage of the series, and dropped it at Paddock.

But the bearded Midlander remains one of the favourites for pole position as series organiser TOCA’s new sporting regulations kick in this weekend.

The push-button boost allowance has been doubled for 2024, and Rowbottom, since he is sitting outside the top seven in the championship, has the full 15 seconds per lap allowance, which will have a greater effect at Brands Indy than any other circuit, because it has the shortest lap time.

Team-mate Cammish also appears to be sitting pretty in this regard, on 13s of boost.

Daniel Rowbottom, NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

The other new sporting regulation to impact qualifying is the splitting of the field into two groups, based on alternate FP2 times, for the first phase.

This means that Chilton, Cammish, Taylor-Smith, Sutton and Turkington will be among those fighting to make the top six cut-off in the first group to progress to Q2, with Rowbottom, Cook, Hill and championship leader Tom Ingram in the second group.

Ingram, twice a winner in the opening round at Donington Park, was outside the top 10 in both sessions in his Excelr8 Hyundai.

BTCC Brands Hatch - Practice results

FP2

Main Information Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information
Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h
1	T. Chilton Team Bristol Street Motors	3		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	23	48.047		90.504
2	D. Rowbottom NAPA Racing UK	32		Ford Focus ST	21	+0.171 48.218	0.171	90.183
3	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK	27		Ford Focus ST	26	+0.184 48.231	0.013	90.159
4	J. Cook LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	66		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	23	+0.189 48.236	0.005	90.149
5	R. Pearson Team Bristol Street Motors	14		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	22	+0.250 48.297	0.061	90.035
6	A. Morgan Team BMW	33		BMW 330e M Sport	23	+0.278 48.325	0.028	89.983
7	A. Taylor-Smith Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	40		Vauxhall Astra	21	+0.279 48.326	0.001	89.981
8	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	16		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	26	+0.334 48.381	0.055	89.879
9	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK	1		Ford Focus ST	24	+0.399 48.446	0.065	89.758
10	J. Hill Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	24		BMW 330e M Sport	28	+0.458 48.505	0.059	89.649
11	M. Doble Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	88		Vauxhall Astra	24	+0.463 48.510	0.005	89.640
12	T. Ingram Team Bristol Street Motors	80		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	23	+0.463 48.510	0.000	89.640
13	C. Turkington Team BMW	20		BMW 330e M Sport	24	+0.490 48.537	0.027	89.590
14	A. Watson Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	11		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	25	+0.524 48.571	0.034	89.527
15	R. Huff Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	12		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	29	+0.561 48.608	0.037	89.459
16	C. Smiley Restart Racing	222		Cupra León	27	+0.658 48.705	0.097	89.281
17	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK	77		Ford Focus ST	24	+0.891 48.938	0.233	88.856
18	S. Sumpton Restart Racing	29		Cupra León	18	+1.213 49.260	0.322	88.275
19	D. De Duckhams Racing with Bartercard	18		Cupra León	24	+1.330 49.377	0.117	88.066
20	N. Halstead Team Bristol Street Motors	22		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	26	+1.533 49.580	0.203	87.706
View full results

FP1

Main Information Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information
Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h
1	A. Taylor-Smith Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	40		Vauxhall Astra	26	47.905		90.772
2	M. Doble Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	88		Vauxhall Astra	24	+0.007 47.912	0.007	90.759
3	C. Turkington Team BMW	20		BMW 330e M Sport	27	+0.065 47.970	0.058	90.649
4	J. Cook LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	66		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	27	+0.088 47.993	0.023	90.606
5	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK	1		Ford Focus ST	27	+0.090 47.995	0.002	90.602
6	J. Hill Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	24		BMW 330e M Sport	25	+0.192 48.097	0.102	90.410
7	D. Rowbottom NAPA Racing UK	32		Ford Focus ST	28	+0.224 48.129	0.032	90.350
8	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK	27		Ford Focus ST	19	+0.342 48.247	0.118	90.129
9	A. Watson Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	11		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	+0.376 48.281	0.034	90.065
10	T. Chilton Team Bristol Street Motors	3		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	27	+0.406 48.311	0.030	90.009
11	A. Morgan Team BMW	33		BMW 330e M Sport	23	+0.448 48.353	0.042	89.931
12	T. Ingram Team Bristol Street Motors	80		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	16	+0.457 48.362	0.009	89.914
13	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	16		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	+0.480 48.385	0.023	89.872
14	R. Pearson Team Bristol Street Motors	14		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	24	+0.533 48.438	0.053	89.773
15	R. Huff Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	12		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	19	+0.634 48.539	0.101	89.587
16	C. Smiley Restart Racing	222		Cupra León	27	+0.837 48.742	0.203	89.213
17	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK	77		Ford Focus ST	26	+1.008 48.913	0.171	88.902
18	N. Halstead Team Bristol Street Motors	22		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	27	+1.494 49.399	0.486	88.027
19	S. Sumpton Restart Racing	29		Cupra León	25	+1.716 49.621	0.222	87.633
20	D. De Duckhams Racing with Bartercard	18		Cupra León	12	+1.914 49.819	0.198	87.285
View full results