After what could be considered as a bit of a dismal Donington opener West Surrey Racing delivered the perfect response at Brands Hatch by taking three wins out of three with Jake Hill, Charles Rainford and Daryl DeLeon on the Brands Hatch Indy layout for the second round of the 2025 BTCC season.

As much as it could be looked upon as a ‘comeback,’ event for the BMW machines run by the team, the two protagonists from the season opener – Ash Sutton (Ford) and Tom Ingram (Hyundai) still managed to come away from the meeting as the top two drivers in the standings. Ingram showed that even with a considerable disadvantage with TOCA Turbo Boost restrictions that his steed is probably the fastest car out there across all the different Turbo permutations. The Ford of Ash Sutton was not too far behind the Hyundai, but how much of the BMW domination came from the fact that those two were restricted, added to a catastrophic operating procedure failure from Dan Cammish, who knocked off his ignition on a safety car restart while chasing for the race two win?      

Qualifying turned out to be a saving grace for Hill after those Donington struggles, with teammate Rainford lining up beside him a mere 0.021s behind. A mixture of rear biased weight balancing the car a little better, and other lead machines being further penalised in reduction of TOCA Turbo Boost put a couple of his rivals at a further disadvantage, but the intended 15 seconds of usable TTB didn’t hinder things too much with eligible cars not getting much more than 12 seconds use across the 46-47second lap, meaning Hill with his 11 seconds was close to the effective maximum.

Hill and Rainford had skipped through the group sessions together with the pair easing through the second part of the first phase ahead of Mikey Doble (Vauxhall,) Adam Morgan (Hyundai,) Stephen Jelley (Honda) and Ronan Pearson. In group one Aiden Moffat had a self-inflicted trip into the gravel which would leave hm dead last, but Daryl DeLeon had shown the first shoots of BMW greenery by going second fastest. Tom Ingram had topped the opening session, but the other main title challenger – Ash Sutton – hampered by a one second boost limit could only manage seventh, dropping him out at the first hurdle while Cammish (Ford,) Dan Lloyd (Hyundai,) Sam Osbourne (Ford) and Chris Smiley (Hyundai) also moved to the second session.

The pace of the BMW was becoming clear with Rainford topping Q2 ahead of Ingram and Hill, with Doble Morgan and Cammish moving into the final phase where Hill and Rainford were followed by Morgan, Ingram, Cammish and Doble.

The starting grid for race one had the BMW pair on soft tyres with the cars following mirroring that. Race one for Hill was redemption for the hard work the team had put in since early runs in the pre-season had indicated that the 330 was not on the pace. A drive into the distance in what will have been elating for him was a rather dull affair for the rest of us with the only top six change being Ingram taking third from Morgan. The feeling was that a lot of the front runners were sniffing out the race two setup where the lead three would have no choice but to start on hard tyres, before dropping down the order. Sutton from 13^th ran his hards first to climb the order through the day.

In the second encounter Hill held a lead with momentum as Rainford dropped down the order. For six laps it looked like the defending champ had a shot at defying the odds the rubber gods had laid down for him, but a physical encounter both on and off-track) for the Un-Limited duo of Dexter Patterson and Max Hall pulled a safety car. And the odds were on Cammish – in second on softs, eating the leader up and walking into the distance with the BMW of DeLeon in tow, alas, once the safety car light went out Cammish accidentally hit his ignition into the off position and stalled on track before being clattered, with damage extending the SC and his Ford heading to the garage on a flatbed.

Once the green flew DeLeon passed Hill for the lead to give WSR a second race win of the day (Hill’s 133^rd breaking the record for most wins by a BTCC team.) The third-year driver in his second meeting with the team had shown the ability that the paddock and pitlane knows is there and the 19-year-old became the third youngest race winner in BTCC history with Morgan and a slick Sutton joining him on the podium.

For the third race the reverse grid draw plonked Dan Rowbottom on pole with Hill alongside and Rainford and Cook on row two. The assumption was that Hill would lead the BMW charge, but it was Rainford who would take his first BTCC win in only his sixth start. After a bit of rubbing with Rowbottom that was enough to draw an investigation (and rejection) over a possible ‘push to pass’ the former Porsche racer held onto an ebbing and flowing lead to cross the line ahead of his champion teammate. Hill came under pressure from Ingram in the closing stages but some solid defensive lines stopped the Hyundai driver from stealing a place in the last few laps.

The series of wins were pleasing to team owner Dick Bennetts: “ To break the BTCC’s all-time wins record is a major achievement and a testament to the hard work of everyone who’s been involved with WSR over the past three decades,” he said. “To go from where we were at Donington to three wins with three different drivers two weeks later is incredible and all the drivers richly deserved their wins. This is a great position to be in as we look ahead to Snetterton and the rest of the season.”

The Snetterton round is one where the BMW contingent should once again find some track advantage with the power circuit being perceived as one that is advantageous to the Munich derived RWD machines. Hill, in wet and mixed conditions proved to be the man to beat at the track last season and even with TTB penalties will likely have the better of his two rivals – which is exactly how the series is shaping up after two rounds.

The pre-season predictions that the top three from the last few years will retain that position is already coming to the fore as Sutton, Ingram and Hill once again separate themselves from the rest of the pack.