BTCC Brands Hatch: Smiley tops free practice

Northern Irish tin-top battler Chris Smiley ruffled the British Touring Car Championship elite by setting the fastest time in free practice for round two at Brands Hatch.

Smiley’s Restart Racing team only took delivery of its brand-new Excelr8 Motorsport-built Hyundai i30 N Fastbacks shortly before official pre-season testing began, but the cars look strong on just their second weekend in competition.

Smiley ended up topping the times by 0.091 seconds from the Excelr8 machine of Adam Morgan, with all six of the Hyundais featuring in the top nine in the times.

The round on the Brands Indy circuit features the soft Goodyear tyre being used predominantly, with the hard compound as the alternative that must be used in one race.

With temperatures warm, most competitors remained on the medium tyres carried over from the opening round at Donington Park for FP1, although nearly everyone got out on the soft in FP2 in order to assess where they are in time for qualifying.

The other curveball is a new track surface over the second half of the lap, from Cooper Straight to the exit of Clark Curve. With this surface significantly warmer than the asphalt on the rest of the circuit, drivers reported a lot of sliding at Surtees – clearly visible to onlookers – with a sudden gripping up at Clearways.

Smiley made the best of it, and remarked: “The overall package and balance is pretty good. We just need to keep chipping away at it. But it’s only FP2 – we don’t want to get too carried away.”

Aiden Moffat took the third fastest time at the wheel of the quickest of the West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330i M Sports, ahead of the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Mikey Doble.

Tom Ingram, the 2022 champion, was fifth fastest in his Excelr8 Hyundai from the WSR BMW of Charles Rainford, and three more Hyundais – Dan Lloyd (Restart), Michael Crees and Tom Chilton (both Excelr8).

Rounding out the top 10 was the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport of James Dorlin.

BTCC rookie Rainford was the quickest in FP1 by 0.137s from reigning champion team-mate Jake Hill, with the WSR squad appearing to be much happier with life following their disappointing opening round at Donington.

Third in that session was Dan Cammish in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST ahead of Morgan.

Hill did not get to run soft tyres other than a brief scrubbing-in during FP1, while best of the Ford flotilla in FP2 was four-time champion Ash Sutton in 11th place.

It means that Sutton and Ingram, the top two in the championship heading into the weekend, will both run in the first group in Q1, with Hill in the second group.

With the removal of hybrid for 2025, all but six of the drivers lapped under Colin Turkington’s qualifying lap record from 2022, which looks set to be shattered when it counts against the clock.

There was just one red flag, around 10 minutes into FP1, when three-time champion Gordon Shedden made light contact with the tyre wall at Druids, although his Speedworks Toyota reappeared later in the session.

Another Speedworks setback concerned Aron Taylor-Smith, who only got out for FP2 right at the end of the session once a gearbox gremlin that reared its head in FP1 had been rectified.