Hill nabs Brands Hatch BTCC pole

Jake Hill secured pole position for the first of three British Touring Car Championship races on Brands Hatch’s Indy Circuit this weekend, beating teammate Charles Rainford in a tight qualifying session.

West Surrey Racing BMW driver Hill set a best time of 46.493s in the final ‘Quick Six’ portion of qualifying, edging Rainford – who had topped Q2 – by just 0.021s.

Adam Morgan was the highest-placed front-wheel-drive runner, qualifying third, just 0.005s back from Rainford in his Excelr8 Motorsport-run Team Vertu Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance. His teammate, 2023 series champion Tom Ingram, will line up fourth, with Dan Cammish fifth in his NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST fifth and Mikey Doble, the highest-placed independent runner, completing the top six in his Motor parts Direct with Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra.

After being eliminated in Q2 – the fastest six advancing from both Q2 and the Q1 sessions, the latter being split into two parts with 13 and 12 cars in each – Sam Osborne will start seventh, a late time from teammate Cammish dropping him out of a transfer spot. Daniel Lloyd will line up eighth for Restart Racing, ahead of Daryl DeLeon and Ronan Pearson, the highest-placed of the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK cars in what was a difficult day from the Speedworks Motorsport-run operation.

A notable absentee from the sharp end of qualifying was championship leader Ash Sutton, who failed to advance from his Q1 group thanks to his lack of turbo boost allocation. His best time put him seventh in his group, 0.54s adrift of Chris Smiley in the final transfer spot.

Drivers in the top 10 of the championship standings receive less ‘TOCA Turbo Boost’ (TTB) allocation, with that amount starting at 1 second for the points leader and increasing by two second increments up to the driver eighth in the points, who receives the full 15 seconds along with the rest of the field. In races, TTB is regulated by usage on a number of laps rather than a time.

As a result, Sutton will start the first race on Sunday from 13th on the grid, behind Smiley and Stephen Jelley, with Sutton’s NAPA Racing UK teammate Daniel Rowbotton 14th.

Tom Chilton will start 15th alongside his Team Vertu teammate Michael Crees, with Josh Cook, Aron Taylor-Smith, Max Hall, James Dorlin, Nocolas Hamilton, Dexter Paterson, Nick Halstead, Gordon Shedden, and Aiden Moffat completing the grid.

All three races will be broadcast live on RACER Network at 6:30am, 9am and 12pm ET on Sunday.

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