[BTCC] Brands Thread

[sceptic]

Originally Posted by Evantra

“He ain’t going nowhere” according to Paul O’Neill

Yes, Steve will definitely be back next year.

[porsche962fan]

Congratulations Jack Hill 2024 BTCC Champion !!

[Evantra]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

Congratulations Jack Hill 2024 BTCC Champion !!

Well done Jack! Didn’t know he had a brother.

[porsche962fan]

if rain didn't come it would have been Tingram double champion

[Jon411]

I was not expecting that, I thought the BMWs were out of it with the weather conditions before the start.

Great season by Jake & WSR AND Tom & Excelr8

[v8supes]

I did not expect Hill to win the title, thought Ingram had it as good as wrapped up with his pace today.

[Greem]

Well deserved championship win for Hill. I loved the genuine congratulations from Ingram, Sutton and Turkington at the end.

Was a shame that Sutton got bonked out of race 1, but even he was fairly pragmatic about it afterwards.

[Matt K]

That Hyundai was just so unbelievably slow. If it'd stayed dry, I'd say Tom would've won. But in wet the car looked like not functioning at all whereas Hill's BMW was very fast.
Well done for Jake, he matured a lot this year and was very very strong, have actually tipped him to be the champ this year for most of the year.
Whoever wins, I love BTCC season finales, there's something amazing about the atmosphere, so glorious. I'm personally happy to see Ash win the race. Hope they can regain their mojo in 2025. For now, time for Hill to enjoy it, suspect it might not be the last time he wins the title. Can't help but feel gutted for Tingram, it all seemed to point in his direction for most of the day but he was on the back foot ever since the clash with Sutton and Cook.
As much as this was a really frustrating season for me because of the way the year went for Sutton, from the perspective of motorsport &BTCC fan, this was a hugely enjoyable season. Can't wait for the next one already. BTCC is being annoying at times but a bit addictive

[Evantra]

Originally Posted by Matt K

As much as this was a really frustrating season for me because of the way the year went for Sutton

Try being a Bobby Thompson fan!!

[Matt K]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Try being a Bobby Thompson fan!!

Haha no, I would never survive it! although yeah, fingers firmly crossed for Bobby for next year

[Evantra]

Originally Posted by Greem

Well deserved championship win for Hill. I loved the genuine congratulations from Ingram, Sutton and Turkington at the end.

Was a shame that Sutton got bonked out of race 1, but even he was fairly pragmatic about it afterwards.

Agreed, he deserved it, has worked hard for it and I’m glad it came down to a straight fight in the very last race.

[MarcusH26]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Try being a Bobby Thompson fan!!

In terms of rollercoaster seasons yeah you take the trophy with that!!! Hopefully he's back with a properly funded title push , ironically that Snett P2 might have just helped Jake over the line

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Matt K

That Hyundai was just so unbelievably slow. If it'd stayed dry, I'd say Tom would've won. But in wet the car looked like not functioning at all whereas Hill's BMW was very fast.
Well done for Jake, he matured a lot this year and was very very strong, have actually tipped him to be the champ this year for most of the year.
Whoever wins, I love BTCC season finales, there's something amazing about the atmosphere, so glorious. I'm personally happy to see Ash win the race. Hope they can regain their mojo in 2025. For now, time for Hill to enjoy it, suspect it might not be the last time he wins the title. Can't help but feel gutted for Tingram, it all seemed to point in his direction for most of the day but he was on the back foot ever since the clash with Sutton and Cook.
As much as this was a really frustrating season for me because of the way the year went for Sutton, from the perspective of motorsport &BTCC fan, this was a hugely enjoyable season. Can't wait for the next one already. BTCC is being annoying at times but a bit addictive

To be entirely fair, it was Cook, possibly attempting to brake extremely late, too fiercely considering that he had coolish brakes and cold tyres, who slammed into Sutton and knocking him into Ingram, and causing mayhem.

As for Sutton's year, taking into consideration how relatively poor it has been to past years, he still went into today with an outside chance of taking the championship if all his stars aligned with Hill and Ingram having problems. At least he went out with a high on the last race.

[AJD]

Always nice to see a new 1st time champion.

On the whole a decent season and nice to see the championship decided on the very last race.

[SR18]

I've never seen Turkington defending Like he did in Race 1

[VIVA GT]

I have to admit that, going into race one I was rooting for Ash Sutton. "If he can have a good result in race one, that should give him a good chance for race two, leaving race three to be an epic championship decider between the three of them" was the way I was thinking, then along came Josh Cook! (Mind you, looking at the replays, Ash actually kept Tom in the race and out of the gravel, not that I think it was a conscious decision). So, then I tied my colours to the Tom Ingram camp and by the end of race two, I thought I'd made the right choice. Then alongcame race three and the rain...
It was an entertaining Championship Finals day with generally exemplary driving from nearly everyone, apart from the kerfuffle at Druids in race one, there was no really major carnage.
I too was very touched by the very good natured and sporting attitude of all of Jake Hill's competitors at the end (and some other team owners too I noticed) congratulating Jake on winning the championship, he certainly seems to have matured a lot this year and I too think that he is a worthy champion.
So, that's it for this year (apart from the rumour mill/silly season) and I hope that next year's BTCC will be as good as this one has been.

[techspeed]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Agreed, he deserved it, has worked hard for it and I’m glad it came down to a straight fight in the very last race.

I agree that it was great to have a championship deciding weekend where the drivers are racing each other, and in a pretty straight fight not distorted by ballast.

As others have said, good for the championship to have a first time winner as well.

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by techspeed

I agree that it was great to have a championship deciding weekend where the drivers are racing each other, and in a pretty straight fight not distorted by ballast.

As others have said, good for the championship to have a first time winner as well.

Sutton might have a different view after the idiotic race one Cook display Strange Rowbottom got nailed at Silverstone for sliding into Cook in horrendous conditions and yet Cook gets off Scott free for taking out a Championship contender Cook in a BMW in 2025?... Anyway fair play to Hill

[hen henths]

That was an extremely exciting end to the season. It had all the right ingredients for a classic touring car finale. Very unpredictable and in the third race I was really expecting Hill's performance to drop off a bit more and Tingram to catch him (although I know theoretically the BMWs can look after their tyres better over the race distance), but congratulations to Jake and comiserations to Tingram.

Nice to see Ash getting that race 3 win. We will have to see whether they can wring any more drops of performance out of that Focus for next year as it wasn't quite there this year.

Just gotta say, imagine if that race 1 crash had taken out Tingram and Hill instead of Cook and Sutton!

[tocatrucky]

Originally Posted by billy bleach

Sutton might have a different view after the idiotic race one Cook display Strange Rowbottom got nailed at Silverstone for sliding into Cook in horrendous conditions and yet Cook gets off Scott free for taking out a Championship contender Cook in a BMW in 2025?... Anyway fair play to Hill

You're making a huge assumption that Yesterdays Race 1 thing was intentional and/or avoidable exactly like Silverstone. It wasn't. Its not that Yesterday should also be a penalty IMO, neither incident deserved penalties.

[steve_r]

I only just caught up with this weekends action.

Good advert for the championship, it going to the last race. And even within that race during the first few laps it looked like it could have gone either way. The BMWs used to go backwards in the slightly damp and slippery conditions, so fair play to WSR for getting a setup that worked, they now have a title to show for it.

I am delighted to see Hill win it. He has been very fast for a few years now, but has now added that bit of maturity to his approach. The top 4 or 5 in the championship contained all the drivers that most people probably would have predicted.

[steve_r]

Originally Posted by billy bleach

Sutton might have a different view after the idiotic race one Cook display Strange Rowbottom got nailed at Silverstone for sliding into Cook in horrendous conditions and yet Cook gets off Scott free for taking out a Championship contender Cook in a BMW in 2025?... Anyway fair play to Hill

None of the driver interviews that I heard had the same opinion as you, including Ingram.

[Sodemo]

To be honest, I was expecting a total walkover by Ingram, Brands GP hasn't really been a happy hunting ground for WSR / BMW, but it seems like that all changed. I lost count of how many Brands finale's have been rain affected, I would say, most of them have, but maybe that's a stretch.

The BMW does seem to struggle more in damp conditions, what I often found puzzling was that the BMW rear tyres seem to go off far earlier than I would think, as tyre preservation should be the ace card for the beemers, but it seems like they have historically chewed through their rear tyres far too early in a race and then their pace drops off, whereas the front drive cars don't seem to have their pace affected by the front tyres wearing.

Congrats to Hill, he drove some good races and was consistent throughout the year and avoided getting into too many silly incidents like he perhaps has in the past.

[tee.1s]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

To be honest, I was expecting a total walkover by Ingram, Brands GP hasn't really been a happy hunting ground for WSR / BMW, but it seems like that all changed. I lost count of how many Brands finale's have been rain affected, I would say, most of them have, but maybe that's a stretch.

The BMW does seem to struggle more in damp conditions, what I often found puzzling was that the BMW rear tyres seem to go off far earlier than I would think, as tyre preservation should be the ace card for the beemers, but it seems like they have historically chewed through their rear tyres far too early in a race and then their pace drops off, whereas the front drive cars don't seem to have their pace affected by the front tyres wearing.

Congrats to Hill, he drove some good races and was consistent throughout the year and avoided getting into too many silly incidents like he perhaps has in the past.

That achilles heel historically cost turks the title in 2020 against sutton so hats off to BMW for sorting it out. Seems as though Hill was a lot more comfortable in those greasy conditions than turks in the same car all year too

[BTCC frog]

I think it was something of a classic finale, and I am glad I was there to witness it. It is not often that one title contender has to overtake the other on track to win the championship, but that is exactly what happened at Brands Hatch. I was supporting Ingram in the final race because I thought he had earned it with those two extraordinary drives of a champion in races one and two, particularly the move around the outside of Turkington, but Hill made up for it in race three with his move around the outside at Surtees, and then driving away. He has been something of a wet weather specialist his whole career and Snetterton and Silverstone this year were clues that the rain could have tilted the balance in favour of Hill.

That is three years in a row now, that it has been Ingram (Hyundai) vs Sutton (Ford) vs Hill (BMW), and things rarely stay the same for long in the BTCC, so I feel like we could have a shake up in the driver lineups next year. But those three are clearly the class of the field at the moment and it is good that in the three years, they have won a championship each.