The Autosport International Show 2025 at the Birmingham NEC delivered news, opinion and ‘facts’ that were likely cooked up while horse corpses were being melted down. Some fumes must have been huffed considering some of the mad stuff that was thrown my way at the weekend.

There is also the ‘proper’ stuff. The believable stories beside the crazy rumours, but it’s up to you, dear reader, to attempt to determine what is fact and what is fiction.

One thing that can be confirmed as certain, and this will blow the bubble on some of the postulating online that fans have gotten up to in the off-season (which is a lot of fun if we’re honest,) Nick Halstead does not own the i30 N he has raced over the last two years. Those theories of him taking that car elsewhere are out of the question – direct from the man himself. He won’t share where he’s going this year – but there seems to be some misunderstanding among BTCC fans from his statement about leaving Excelr8 at the end of the year meaning he’s hanging his BTCC boots up. Watch the video below which includes an interview with Nick.

Josh Cook last season was the subject of some very wide of the mark rumours. Again, he’s a hot topic. He’s signed something somewhere, but one muttering was that we’ll see him in the Porsche Carrera Cup UK. Another is that he’ll be racing for One Motorsport in one of their Civics with a TOCA engine (if you haven’t heard that one, where have you been??!!) The other One rumour is that he’s now the Team Principal, or Team Owner, and will race, or be on the pitwall (or both at the same time?) for the team directing things, but that’s not all. If you believe everything you’re told, there are two Honda FL5 NGTC cars half built at JAS (who built and ran the Honda WTCC cars and built the Honda TCR cars) in Italy that One will run for 2026 – oh, and there are three new teams coming in for 2026 too. Mind you, there is an overriding opinion that not all 24 TBL entries will be utilised this year, with more than one person believing, from their paddock insider knowledge, that only 20 or 21 cars will be on the grid this year again.

The fourth car at WSR is still open. One comment on that I’ve heard is that Turkington will be back, another source says he’s not, with a cheeky grin that implied they didn’t know either way. Former Beemer pilot Adam Morgan is eyeing one or two more years before hanging his boots up – wanting to finish his tenure in a Front Wheel Drive car, but the fourth seat alongside him at Excelr8 still seems dependent on Dan Zelos raising budget in time for the start of the season. In i30 N land that has been the case also with Dan Lloyd at Restart, something that the team has been open about. There’s still time for budgets to be raised, and the overriding feeling is that both drivers deserve those seats, entirely on skill and ability, and that it’s also a shit situation that racers of that calibre have to battle to get the pennies to be in competitive seats.

Dan Rowbottom, again, watch our interview from Autosport, he’ll tell you about his recovery, and what is happening going forward for him in 2025. The fourth seat at NAPA? No news at all. Speculation is that Sam Osbourne, after a fantastic end to 2024, will retain that place. Speculation about the replacement of the Ford Focus for Alliance is facing a black hole. Nobody knows – or is ready to share what comes next for the team. Any model mentioned is pure guesswork, but, could they be the squad that finally tips the balance towards an SUV, with some factory backing? That’s pure conjecture by the way, and not mine, because I’m too simple to consider that leftfield possibility.

There is a suggestion that the mysterious Vortx Racing will snap at least one TBL for Scott Sumpton to campaign a Cupra, possibly in conjunction with another team. Those who know the situation, but are not involved in it themselves, seem to think there is more weight in that story than fans are giving credit for, but, like many deals, it’s dependent on that last chunk of finance to get across the line. Again, Nic Hamilton is being rumoured in the world of the internet. If any BTCC drivers want to add me to their Whatsapp group, or send me some juicy ‘untraceable’ gossip to confirm or deny, then give me a shout!! But on Nic, the tale states that he had something big lined up in the last year or two – very big budget, with the sponsor pulling the plug at the last minute on a two-car team. A Cupra Leon, an i30, a Ford Focus, a Toyota – in fact every car on the grid has been muttered, but unlike other rumours there has not been a ‘he said, she said’ link to any drive – at least not to me.

So, if the Cook to One thing is true that means there is One seat for One driver which is One of the positions left open on the grid. One does not yet have a real inkling what will happen there, One has no solid info on seat two, apart from someOne throwing the name of One Mikey Doble in the direction. It ain’t gonna be Montoya though, is it?

So if 2+2 does not equal One, is that Doble back at Power Maxed? ATS is there, he has a season left of two-year deal, but things are oddly quiet there now. Apart from it being where Halstead and Doble will go, which won’t happen because Ronan Pearson has the seat (along with his Toyota berth, but we’ll get to Speedworks in a moment.) A name that was bounced around was a variation of a father/son relationship we’ve seen at WSR, and in British GT. That story goes as Ricky Collard getting a seat there, where his Dad Rob finished his BTCC career in 2019, alongside his old Toyota team mate George Gamble, but what of Toyota?

One claim is that if the TCR World Tour round had come to Oulton Park as was planned, Rob Huff would have gone there instead of the BTCC. It’s a claim – like everything else thus far, this is the information and ideas supplied by others, not me! Online the chatter is that Speedworks will drop to three, or even two cars. I have not heard anything personally about that, but the return of Huff has been mooted – the reasoning being the car is heading more to his liking, and as a lead driver with experience of the machine, he’ll have even more influence towards development to his taste. Isn’t that what any driver wants. Beside him? Halstead, Pearson, Cook, Thompson, Sumpton, Doble, Zelos. You get the score.

The odd thing this year is that there isn’t much in the way of ‘X’ driver stepping up to BTCC, or from TCR UK. The finances of the BTCC, and the gap between TOCA and TCR UK budgets to that of an NGTC car seems to point to the gene pool remaining essentially as is. Apart from the wayward Ricky Collard to Power Maxed suggestion, there isn’t a hint at the moment of a GT driver swapping codes either.

There was information off the record that stays that way, so if you’re an informant who asked for something to stay off the record, you’ll see that’s the case – apart from a couple of things where somebody else said the same thing, in which case they’re the blabbermouth, not you…..

A year has passed since Team HARD went to the wall. Loads of stories from both BTCC and TCR UK relating to the fallout from that were shared. There could be a whole article on the subject. Although there were many comments throughout 2024, it seems like a lot of people wanted to get things off their chest at Autosport. The problem for me? Without a paper trail, and the documents to confirm stories – I simply can’t publish them. Well, I could, but I can’t be bothered with litigation surrounding it all! I am not a rich man and I assume that there would be a lot of legal letters through my front door if I let that loose at the moment!

There is a lot of crazy in there, but there is some sensible, but hold your horses, there’s a driver who hadn’t realised he’d received a significant injury halfway through the season, but continued to race – in TCR UK – a championship with no rumours of BTCC drivers heading there for once. At least not for now.

With what we know we can put together 15 cars and drivers who we’ll see for certain this season on the TCR UK grid. One sitting on the fence and a couple of high-quality cars waiting for drivers. There are possible entrants who are sitting around thumb twiddling with cars who are staying silent – you’d imagine some of it is looking to see how things play out, especially in the fall out of the TCR ‘blacklist’ story – something addressed by promoter Stewart Lines in the video posted above.

There’s still more than two months till the season starts, so the 16-20 number for the 2020 grid seems feasible. Plus, TCR UK will race with Super Tourers on their first weekend, British GT second time out, then TCR Europe at Spa and two Truck racing meetings, in addition to a couple of headline meetings and a new streaming deal with BARC – it looks a lot more rosy than what many thought likely just a month ago when it was announced that WSC – the owners of TCR – were kicking into touch their homologation enforcement.

From the information we gleaned, from several sources, most of which were backed up by secondary sources, we know of 11 drivers who are set for the series in 2025 and one driver from 2024 who is weighing their options (including the four announced so far.) We know that the Junior Programme has attracted a lot of attention, with the two places that remain possibly being stretched to four. We also know that a British team has purchased two Cupra Leon VZs with an intention to race in TCR UK (alongside the two Laidlaw machines.). The championship is still receiving enquiries from drivers, and there are several owners and owner/drivers who could yet be persuaded to enter.

One thing we know for certain is that Adam Shepherd raced through the second half of last season with a broken back without knowing it. Two titanium pins are in there for life now, holding it together, and he’s looking a bit stiff. Up my way we’d say he’s hard as fuck.

Some of the names bouncing around include Tom Leicester, who has bought a Honda FK7 that Brad Thurston raced last season. Both he and the SGM team had previously posted online images of the car being tested, but over at TCR they wouldn’t deny that there was at least a part season coming, with Cerdric Bloch set to return too.

Callum Newsham will be in there – that was out online a while ago. There appears be eight returnees. Another is getting spelks in the cheeks from fence sitting. Others are yet to show their cards.

The show was smaller this year, and the Tin Top side of things was really low on the ground. The insatiable taste for gossip was harder than usual to satisfy, and while a few pieces of the puzzle for the Tin Top grids are falling into place, there is a lot yet to come. And remember there is a third Touring Car Championship starting this year, but there was no buzz for that at Autosport – well, non that is printable at least…..