Double British Touring Car Championship race winner Senna Proctor has been called up to replace Sam Osborne for the series’ fifth round at Thruxton.
Osborne felt unwell on Friday, and was referred to the local hospital for blood tests. Although these came back all clear, he has remained below par on Saturday morning so has relinquished the seat of his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium for the weekend.
Proctor, who was taken on by Alliance in a reserve role for the 2026 season, is therefore on board for Thruxton only. He spent much of the elongated 50-minute free practice session in the top 10 in the times, before slipping back to an eventual 14th position.
The Yorkshireman’s presence is the latest of a merry-go-round of changes in the BTCC’s runners and riders.
Ryan Bensley, who contested a one-off round in 2025 with an Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai, has replaced Max Buxton in the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport stable. The sometime TCR UK frontrunner finished a highly respectable 17th of the 22 runners in free practice.
GB3 convert Lewis Gilbert has switched to the BTCC for the remainder of the season with the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport team, and the Scot ended up 21st in the running order.
Lewis Gilbert, WSR BMW
Photo by: WSR
Fastest was the Restart Racing Hyundai i30 N Fastback of Chris Smiley, leading a 1-2 for the Independent team from stablemate James Dorlin.
Championship leader Ash Sutton was at the top of the times on hard-compound Goodyear tyres with 10 minutes remaining, before Smiley had a set of mediums fitted and eclipsed the Alliance Ford star’s time.
Smiley then went quicker still on his next lap, while Dorlin – also on mediums – improved to finish up just 0.093 seconds adrift of the Northern Irishman.
The high-speed, abrasive Thruxton is usually a hard-tyres-only venue, but the BTCC has introduced the medium for qualifying only this weekend.
Sutton, who was the best part of 0.4s behind Smiley, was the fastest of the runners on hard tyres in third place.
Fourth was Mikey Doble with the lead Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon, with the Speedworks-run Toyotas of Josh Cook and Aron Taylor-Smith next.
Dan Cammish was on a hot lap that should have put him in the same ballpark as team-mate Sutton when he went too fast into the chicane. He ended up seventh in front of Tom Ingram (Excelr8 Hyundai), Adam Morgan (Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon) and Gordon Shedden (Speedworks Toyota).
ITV
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
BTCC extends live deal with ITV
BTCC organiser TOCA has extended its deal with ITV to show live, free-to-air coverage of the series until the end of the 2029 season.
It means the series will continue to be shown on ITV4, as well as the ITVX streaming service.
“This new contract underlines my unwavering commitment to continue to keep the BTCC as freely accessible to as many people as possible rather than for it to be hidden behind a paywall,” said TOCA supremo Alan Gow.
“My policy has always been for the BTCC to have the widest reach achievable, and our long relationship with ITV makes that happen.
“In fact, the BTCC is the only UK motorsport that has live, free-to-air coverage of an entire championship on mainstream linear television and, thanks to our great partners at ITV, long may that continue.”
BTCC Thruxton – Free practice results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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