The British Touring Car Championship heads to Silverstone as Ash Sutton seeks his fifth Drivers’ Championship, Dexter Patterson can claim the Jack Sears Trophy, and Osamu Kawashima debuts.
Silverstone’s brief 1.64-mile National layout hosts the penultimate weekend of the 2026 campaign, with it being an easy prediction that Sutton will wrap up the title by the end of Sunday’s Race 2.
Using the National grid position, which Formula 1 fans will be familiar with as the starting spot prior to 2010, the configuration sees drivers take on Copse as Turn 1 and head through Maggots and Becketts before turning right onto the Wellington Straight, finishing their lap around Brooklands, Luffield, and Woodcote.
Dan Lloyd took Restart Racing’s first and only BTCC victory here last year, with Tom Ingram and Sam Osborne also winning on that Sunday. Both lap records were also claimed that weekend, with Daryl De Leon posting a 56.734s in qualifying and Ingram a 56.875s on raceday.
Josh Cook, Sutton, and Mikey Doble enter the weekend singing after success at a Croft weekend packed with track-limit penalties, while the CPRL pair of Adam Morgan and Dan Rowbottom will still be flying high after their post-Plato victories.
Free Practice begins at 10:05 on Saturday, followed by timed qualifying at 14:05 and the Race to Pole at 15:05 – with the qualifying sessions broadcast on ITV Sport Extra’s YouTube Channel. Sunday’s three 22-lap races start at 11:15, 14:30 and 17:20 respectively – all on ITV4 and ITVX as usual.
Ash Sutton and Dexter Patterson set to be crowned at Silverstone
Three years after his last title-winning season, Sutton has produced his best – perhaps the best – through 2026.
Eight wins and nine further podiums to his name, Sutton’s Ford Focus Saloon has only failed to finish once as he stormed to success after success.
Now, with six full-length races to go, Sutton looks set to claim it by Silverstone’s second.
A slim five-point gain on Dan Cammish through Race 1 would see the #116 Ford Focus peel into parc fermé as the Drivers’ Champion, while any kind of sensible scoring would see an eventual 98-point gap after Race 2 enough to claim the title.
Should it go down to the final race of the weekend, Sutton’s current 115-point lead can fall all the way to 76 before Cammish and Tom Ingram would be able to extend the fight to the Brands Hatch GP weekend.
If it does, Suttons joint-record eight wins in 2026 would see him in a favourable position should all manner of disasters happen to see the battle decided by a tiebreak.
Elsewhere, Patterson seems set to claim the Jack Sears Trophy. It would have been a more competitive battle had finances not forced James Dorlin out of a Restart Racing seat, but Patterson is more than deserving of victory after a season of strong scoring.
Lewis Selby is his closest challenger, sitting on 298 points, but even that is only nine points ahead of Dorlin’s half-season effort.
While NAPA Racing UK have stormed away in the Drivers’ Championship, both team-related scoreboards, and the competitive Jack Sears Trophy campaign was curtailed by Dorlin pulling out, the Independent Drivers’ and the Independent Teams’ looks set to go down to the wire.
Doble leads the charge with 340 points, while Gordon Shedden and Charles Rainford are the likeliest challengers on 307 and 304 each. Though, still within 100 points are the quartet of Daryl De Leon, Aiden Moffat, Patterson, and Árón Taylor-Smith.
Doble’s LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing outfit also leads the way on the Independent Teams’ board, with 403 points. Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport follows on 376, with WSR just shy of them on 372.
Osamu Kawashima in for Ricky Collard at EXCELR8-run Team VERTU
Silverstone will see the oldest debutant of the modern-era as Kawashima steps into the Team VERTU Hyundai at 57 years of age.
The Japanese driver replaces Ricky Collard in doing so, who was set for his best season to date.
Little is known about Kawashima’s racing career, but he did enjoy a strong two-year period in the support package for the BTCC.
Through 2014 and 2015, he raced in the Ginetta GT5 and GT4 championships, claiming runner-up in the amateur class of the GT4s in 2015. This earned him a test with Speedworks in 2016, where he drove their Toyota Avensis.
Since then, Kawashima’s background appears to lie in racing Mazda MX5s and being a test and development driver. He has tested the Hyundai i30N Fastback since his position was announced, and will now be the first Japanese driver to hit the grid in the BTCC since 1985.
Speaking of his new drive, Kawashima has labelled it as a ‘dream finally coming true.’
Discussion about this post