A year ago BTCC boss Alan Gow told Motorsport News that there was a possibility to move in the direction of adding the BTCC to the F1 bill with action taking place on the Thursday and Friday of the F1 race weekend. The target at the time was for the 2025 Grand Prix.

Not every BTCC fan believes that the championship should return to its once traditional slot as a support race for the British Grand Prix.

There is a multitude of reasons as to why some supporters of the largest championship in the United Kingdom don’t want to see ‘their’ series play second fiddle to the most popular form of international motor racing, and be placed as an afterthought behind Formula Two, Formula Three and the Porsche Supercup.

One primary complaint is the ticket price. In an article on this very website earlier this year we calculated at the time that the difference between watching a full BTCC season trackside, and a single F1 weekend at Silverstone was around £2.

Silverstone chief Stuart Pringle has mentioned that the circuit needs to monetise the event further, and after the dynamic pricing farce of the last two years it has proven that the track is taking an image hit, but is still managing to shift all of the tickets.

Silverstone wants to expand its Thursday offering, and in the past has seen support categories run on the afternoon, which is where the crux of an idea has been formulated and discussed. The key factors around this being cost and the F1 timetable.

The BTCC almost returned to the Silverstone support slot in 2004, but a couple of teams towards the front of the grid refused to enter the race – which would have featured European S2000 teams – forcing Gow to pull the plug with two months to go before the event. It was a move that eroded any goodwill between former F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone and the teams who withdrew.

WATCH – THE COULD THE BTCC RETURN TO THE BRITISH GP BILL

Cost is still a factor in the BTCC. The current trend towards reduction in outlay is a major influence on the direction that the series is taking, but could a non-championship F1 round actually benefit the series?

As far as running costs go, ditching the mid-season tyre test (which did not run in 2024) and replacing it with a two-day jaunt at Silverstone would retain that balance. Ditching the usual BTCC hospitality circus and utilising on site hospitality that would be barely used on Thursday, and underused on the Friday – compared to the F1 hospitality that is rammed on Saturday and Sunday – could be an eye catcher.

For some drivers the idea of an F1 support round is one that they have said could attract financial support that would help across the rest of the season, and for those falling short, there are plenty of racers who would happily stump up an inflated lump sum for a one-off meeting in a car vacated for the meeting. It could actually be a profitable move financially for competitors, even before the exposure benefits are taken into consideration.

Currently Silverstone hosts Sky F1 live on the main straight on the Thursday of an F1 weekend. Adding in some BTCC practice, qualifying and even a race on the opening day would be a boon to fans, with a second race squeezed into Friday running (with specially priced tickets for Thurs/Fri for BTCC.) Despite the popularity of the BTCC in the UK, race day crowds are often smaller than an F1 Friday, and it would expose the series to some new fans, something which, just by judging via a face count on a gate on any given race day, is needed.

The BTCC first rocked up as an F1 support race in the inaugural year of the championship. It became a permanent fixture in 1962 and from 1966 to 1996 every round counted towards the championship. The split, forced by BTCC remaining on BBC while ITV took over F1 coverage in 1997, obviously does still have broadcast rights as a sticking point. If the race was to be non-championship live coverage on Sky Sports F1 with highlights on ITV 4 would be sensible – the only thing preventing that would be posturing, as both sides would benefit from extra interest.

With Silverstone needing to find further ways to earn from a Grand Prix weekend, and the BTCC needing to bring in new fans, it seems like an ideal match up. Even for F1 itself it would be a benefit. Similar to the four day Australian Grand Prix meeting which hosts four Australian Supercars races – with TV coverage of those races a contentious issue – Silverstone could mirror that, leading to BTCC catching a win.