British Touring Car Championship Rounds 16, 17 & 18 at Croft Circuit

Images by Scott Grant

27th - 28th July 2024

The British Touring Cars headed to the North Yorkshire circuit of Croft for three races in the 2024 Championship. After five rounds, Jake Hill was four points clear at the top of the leader board heading into the three race battle. 

After two free practice runs where no driver dominated, the important business of qualifying got underway. Tom Ingram posted two very fast laps in the low 1:21 in Q1 and Q2, and was looking good for the “Quick Six” Q3, but Colin Turkington had other ideas. A lap of 1:21.072 saw him claim pole with Dan Cammish alongside on row one, with Tom Ingram third and Árón Taylor-Smith in fourth on the second row.

Race One Round 16

#20 Turkington has historically gone well at Croft and starting on pole it would be brave, or foolhardy, to bet against him adding to his 14 victories. Leading from start to finish, Turkington marked up win 15 at Croft and his 70th career victory.

#80 Tom Ingram was second with #27 Dan Cammish third. Driver of the round had to be Jake Hill who had a disappointing qualifying, starting 11th on the grid. Hill crossed the finish line in 6th place after 15 laps to get some valuable championship points.

Race Two Round 17

Turkington, again on pole, made a decent start but Tom Ingram took him at Tower Bend. On lap three, again at Tower, in a classic BTCC race, Sutton and team mate Cammish were duelling it out when contact was made with Turkington who departed off track, rejoining and just staying in the top ten.

As the race progressed the cars on the Goodyear soft tyres were now starting to shine. Leader Ingram was passed by Huff, Cook and Rowbottom. With two laps to go #66 Cook took the lead from #12 Huff and held on to take the win with #32 Rowbottom in third.

Race Three Round 18

With the reverse grid coming into play for the final race of the weekend #3 Tom Chilton was on pole. Chilton had been fast all weekend and took advantage of his pole position for a flag to flag victory. #27 Dan Cammish made the podium again in second, with the new championship leader #80 Tom Ingram in third.

After a forgettable round for #24 Jake Hill whose best result was 5th in race three, he is now 21 points behind Ingram as the championship heads north of the border to the Scottish round at Knockhill in August.

Independent Teams

Restart racing with drivers Scott Sumpton and Chris Smiley secured their first independent win of the season in the third and final race of the day. Chris smiley started 19th on the grid and managed to finish the race in 11th overall and first independent team having using the soft tyre in this race. 

Both drivers of the Restart team are becoming more consistent and demonstrating an increased pace in their cars. The only DNF for the team came in race two for Chris Smiley as he had a power steering issue. The team now looks ahead to Knockhill to build upon their progress. 

Chris Smiley results:

Race one: 15th
Race two: DNF
Race three: 11th

Scott Sumpton results: 

Race one: 17th
Race two: 15th
Race three: 16th

Photographic Post Script

Scott Grant was at Croft for the PistonClick team to capture the action. He writes:

“For the first session I started at the Chicane followed by Hawthorn, Clervaux and finished at the end of the start-finish straight. The second session was shot at Sunny Out through to Complex".

"I used my trusty Canon 1DX with the 100-400 Mark II lens for the day. The camera settings were set at auto ISO as the UK weather, and therefore the light, is forever changing.

The shutter speed used for high speed panning shots was set at 1/100 and head on/corner shots were set at 1/1600 as motion blur is not needed as much for these shots.”