Year: 2021

Josh Cook secured his second win from two races with the race marred by a big first lap incident between three drivers.

Andy Neate, Glyn Geddie and Jade Edwards were all in a big shunt on lap one which caused a red flag. On the restart Dan Cammish surged into second to back up his temporary team mate with Jake Hill third.

The race was red flagged on lap one as Glyn Geddie, Jade Edwards and Andy Neate were involved in a first corner collision. Neate dove down the inside at turn one of Geddie and collided. They took Edwards with them as she was an innocent bystander on the outside. Geddie hit the wall and his car pirouetted and rolled and all three were out with considerable damage.

On the restart Hill got away badly, Cammish capitalized on it and moved into third. Into the complex Ingram was battling Cook for the lead with the pair making contact. As Ingram regained his composure Cammish snuck down the inside to take second.

The Safety Car was brought out when Rory Butcher started to spin in the high speed section. He went across the track, with drivers doing well to avoid him, before hitting the tyre wall at speed.

On lap six the race continued, with Dan Rowbottom pulling off a nice move on Ingram as he struggled with ballast in his Hyundai.

The top three pulled away from Jason Plato in fourth who was being caught by the charging Rowbottom. Having pitted, Ash Sutton surged back through the field, ending the race in ninth.

Rowbottom finally passed Plato on lap ten as he got the better of the veteran out of the final chicane for fourth place.

The top two were the quickest cars, with Cook taking his second win from two with Cammish playing a good team mate to back him up.

Hill finished third as his encouraging start to the season continues. Rowbottom secured his best ever BTCC finish with fourth and Plato came home fifth. Ingram and Turkington were next, followed by the Laser Tools duo of Moffat and Sutton. Tom Oliphant rounded off the top ten in his BMW.

Josh Cook took the first win of the 2021 British Touring Car Championship season at Thruxton in an exciting opening race.

A first lap collision sent polesitter Ash Sutton spinning down the order. Tom Ingram’s first race for Excelr8 ended with second place and Jake Hill moved through the order to take third.

The first race is the only race all season which is ballast free, which means all drivers are on a level playing field and it’s purely a case of who’s fastest.

Sutton got away well, with Ingram and Colin Turkington in tow behind. Into the complex at Cobb, Turkington tapped Sutton in braking and spun Sutton around. This promoted Cook to the lead as he manoeuvred past the pair into a lead he never surrendered.

The Safety Car was brought out at the end of lap one as the returning Gordon Shedden tapped the back of Ollie Jackson. This sent the Honda driver into a spin before he collected Chris Smiley. The pair ended in the wall and Jackson pitted to fix an damage. Tom Oliphant appeared to be struggling to get heat into his tyres as he went off before pitting.

On lap seven the Safety Car pulled in and racing resumed. Ingram was on the back of Cook instantly, and was looking to overtake.

Sutton’s resurgence began on lap eight as he passed Sam Smelt and Oliphant. Meanwhile further up Dan Rowbottom, who replaced Matt Neal this season at Team Dynamics, moved around the outside of ex-team mate Adam Morgan at the final chicane in a very impressive move.

A transmission failure ended Stephen Jelley’s impressive return to Team WSR as he pulled into the pits.

In the closing stages there was a battle between Jason Plato, Rory Butcher, and Dan Cammish. Plato fought with Butcher for fifth, and both were passed by Cammish. He swooped into fifth and pulled away in his BTC Honda.

There was a light splatter of rain at the end of the race but nothing to bother the drivers as Cook cruised to the win, keeping up his impressive winning streak at Thruxton dating back to 2018. Ingram was second with Hill third. Turkington came home fourth, but was handed a penalty post race for his part in taking out Sutton, dropping him to tenth., Cammish, Butcher, Plato, Rowbottom, Morgan, and Ash Sutton rounded off the top ten on the road but were all promoted because of Turkington’s penalty.

• – Colin Turkington handed 17 second penalty for collision with Ash Sutton on lap 1.

Reigning champion Ash Sutton took the first pole position of the 2021 British Touring Car Championship season on a drying track at Thruxton.

Qualifying started off with a wet track and dried over the course of the 30 minute session, with the likes of Sutton, Josh Cook and Rory Butcher all exchanging fastest times throughout.

BMW’s Colin Turkington set the first competitive time of the session, and of the season, before Ford’s Jake Hill went faster. Tom Ingram, in his first qualifying session with Excelr8, was fastest five minutes in.

The track was starting to dry at a quick pace, which meant the times were starting to tumble. Cook went fastest and then Sutton regained the top time soon after. Dan Cammish, who returned to the grid with BTC Racing following Michael Crees’ shock departure this week, went third with ten minutes remaining.

With just eight minutes remaining the action began, as Hill went fastest by just under a tenth of a second. Tom Oliphant in the BMW then set a 1:19:7 before Butcher set a 1:19:4.

Not to be upstaged, Hill’s next lap was a 1:19:0, showing how fast the track was drying out. Butcher then snatched top spot straight back as the first driver to break the 1:18’s.

With just under two minutes to go Jade Edwards spun and collided with the tyre wall. She was on slicks and must have hit a damp spot as she hit the wall but soon got going again, but brought out the yellow flag.

Hill was looking to be on a fast lap to try and retake pole, but was held up by Jason Plato into the final chicane. The Vauxhall driver, who was not on a hot lap, had ample opportunity to move out of Hill’s way, but decided to hold him up into the final corner before peeling into the pitlane.

Ingram went fastest as time ran out with a 1:18:7 before Sutton smashed the fastest time, setting a 1:18:3, and taking pole position in the process.

Cook was second, with Turkington’s quiet session finishing third. Ingram, Butcher Oliphant and Hill followed, with Gordon Shedden, Ollie Jackson, and Chris Smiley rounding off the top ten.

Toyota are currently a motorsports powerhouse. They’re an omnipotent force in the World Rally Championship, had all but monopolised the LMP1 class in sportscar racing, and have now given their full factory backing to a British Touring Car Championship team.

The Japanese marque have offered manufacturer support to the Speedworks Motorsport team, who were previously using the Toyota Corolla with Tom Ingram. However now Ingram has moved on, and Speedworks have two works Corolla’s to be driven by talented Scot Rory Butcher, and the returning Sam Smelt.

The Corolla has shown itself to be a fast car at the hands of Ingram since its introduction in 2019. It has won seven races over the last two years and has kept Ingram in the title fight for large proportions of those seasons. Now with two cars, Speedworks has the chance to really push for honours this season.

They’re no strangers to the BTCC, they won two drivers and manufacturers championships in 1986 and 1987, courtesy of Chris Hodgetts. Also two of the most memorable moments in BTCC history include Toyota’s, but perhaps not for the best of reasons. In 1992 at Brands Hatch team mates Andy Rouse and Will Hoy collided and took each other in to the wall and out of the race while running first and second.

The other incident came a year later at Silverstone. Hoy was involved again but this time with Julian Bailey as a team mate. Going into Brooklands, Bailey dove down the inside of Hoy, sending him onto his roof. The moment entered folklore thanks to the late Murray Walker’s famous line, “The car upside down, is a Toyota.” They were again leading one-two.

In terms of the drivers, Rory Butcher has proven himself to be a fast and consistent driver over the last couple of seasons. Six wins in the last two years with AMD CobraSport and Motorbase. His expertise is front wheel drive, having spent his whole BTCC career in front wheel drive machinery. Therefore he’s well suited to lead the new manufacturer team.

Sam Smelt only has one season of BTCC experience under his belt, in the AMD Audi S3 in 2018. While he hasn’t quite hit the heights of his team mate, Smelt has potential, having spent 2020 in British GT with Speedworks in the Toyota Supra GT4.

Toyota’s latest motorsport offering has all the ingredients to be as successful as its stablemates, it’ll have its challengers from other teams on the grid, but the Corolla, and two talented drivers, mean it could well be a start of a beautiful relationship for Speedworks and Toyota.

We will have articles throughout the week to preview the 2021 BTCC season as well as race reports at the weekend from Thruxton.