British Touring Cars Rounds 19, 20 and 21 at Knockhill 10 - 11 August 2024

Images by Scott Grant

The British Touring Cars annual trip north of the border got underway this weekend with rounds 19, 20 and 21 at Knockhill. At only 1.27 miles long the laps come at you quickly as the BTCC cars only take 51 seconds to get round the track, so as a spectator photographer you have to be on the ball to capture the action as it comes thick and fast at this short track.

Scott Grant was at Knockhill to record the event and report back to us on all of the excitement of the Saturday qualifying. So is it worth going to watch one day of the BTCC championship and what can you expect to see if you can only attend on the Saturday?

There were three qualifying sessions for the BTCC on Saturday of around 30 minutes each. The Quick Six format is used to determine the gird positions. After free practice 2 the drivers are split into two groups, odd numbers and even.

These groups then post their fastest qualifying times, with the quickest six from each group moving to Q2. You can guess the next, the top quick six progress to Q3 to fight for pole. So for the spectator the Quick Six is quite exciting and a great format.

Colin Turkington produced the fastest BTCC lap of Knockhill in Q3 at 50.862, just ahead of Aron Taylor-Smith by 0.035 who posted a 50.897. Lap records can only be taken under race conditions but it’s probably safe to say that the record will go on Sunday race day. 

As an independent team, Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra piloted by Aron Taylor-Smith are doing a great job against the other teams. Putting the Astra second on the grid goes to show the Independents can compete with the manufacturers and constructer teams. Taylor-Smith is currently 8th in the championship 123 points behind the leader Tom Ingram.

Qualifying is not as exciting as a full race but does hold the attention of the crowd with the tension rising during the quick six sessions as the drivers push the limits. 

So what were the highlights of the Saturday qualifying as a spectator photographer? The NAPA Racing UK team have arguably one of the most recognised liveries in BTCC, but they changed it up slightly on the Ford Focus ST. A tartan theme has been introduced for the Scottish rounds and looked great in the unusually warm and dry conditions however, its Knockhill so there was a few rain showers. 

The BTCC championship has a great support race series. The Knockhill round featured the F4 British Championship, Porsche Carerra Cup GB, Quaife Mini Challenge and the Legends Cars Elite Cup. Saturday morning saw free practice and qualifying with the afternoon being dominated by two races for the Legends, one race for the F4 and Minis and qualifying for the BTCC. The Carerra Cup GB would have their two races on Sunday.

Photographic Post Script

So if you can only attend the Saturday it is well worth it as a spectator and a photographer. Racing with the support series and BTCC qualifying with plenty of on track action enables you to capture some great pictures. Knockhill has some good locations for you to watch the racing including the iconic image of BTCC cars bouncing off the kerbs, something we don’t see as often as would like at other tracks who have lowered their kerbs over the years. 

During the morning sessions Scott located himself at the hairpin which allowed him to move around to get various different angles for his pictures. Moving to the chicane for the BTCC qualifying and the support races, Scott used a Canon 1DX camera with a 100-400mm Mk II lens. His settings were 1/800 - 1/1250 for the head on apex shoots and 1/100 to 1/60 for the side panning pictures.

For our previous BTCC reports click the image below.