WSR’s Daryl DeLeon stormed to a second-straight British Touring Car Championship pole position in a tense final qualifying session of 2025 at Brands Hatch on Saturday.
The Anglo-Filipino, who scored his maiden series pole last time out at Silverstone, was again a commanding force in the three-part, hour-long session on the Kent circuit’s renowned 2.6-mile Grand Prix layout to end the afternoon on top.
Daryl was second-fastest in his part of the opening ‘Q1’ phase qualifying (Q1), despite suffering a puncture, but the 20-year-old came to the fore to top Q2 segment and seal his progress to the ‘Quick Six’ pole-position shoot-out.
Entering the action late, Daryl had just four minutes in which to set a time that would potentially challenge for pole, and looked to have lost his chance when a storming lap was discounted due to him exceeding track limits.
This presented a ‘now or never’ situation for Daryl, who charged around his final lap to seal back-to-back pole positions by just 0.023 seconds.
It was a fourth pole of 2025 for WSR – more than any other team has achieved this season – and the third from the past four events following Charles Rainford at Knockhill and Daryl’s Silverstone success.
On a day when 0.058s covered the top four in Q3, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport driver Jake Hill qualified sixth, having earlier topped Group 2 of Q1 – in which he was the only BMW driver.
Tomorrow marks Jake’s final BTCC race before he ends a four-year stint in a WSR BMW and heads off to pursue his ambitions in international racing.
Qualifying eighth was LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR’s Charles Rainford, who is one of three drivers who will battle to become Jack Sears Trophy Champion on Sunday.
Charles, who beat Daryl to be fastest in Q1 Group 1, is currently second in the standings, eight points behind polesitter his team-mate. With 60 points available on Sunday, he knows the extent of the challenge he faces to seal the title.
Aiden Moffat, in the sister LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR BMW, was another to show excellent pace in Q1 after losing crucial track time in practice with an electrical issue.
The Scottish racer, like many others, saw several of his fast laps struck from the record for exceeding track limits, but will start 12th for Sunday’s opener.
The first of Sunday’s three races begins at 1125. All three will be broadcast live in the UK on ITV4 and globally (minus the UK and USA) on the BTCC YouTube channel.
Daryl DeLeon, WSR: “I’m over the moon to get back-to-back pole positions so a huge thank you to my WSR car crew. It’s brilliant. I actually got a puncture in Q1, but to get into Q3 and get pole by under a tenth of a second was incredible. Brands GP is my favourite circuit so I’m going to go out there tomorrow, enjoy it and try and close out the Jack Sears Trophy. Head down, let’s see what we can do!”
Jake Hill, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport: “I’m happy with sixth. I’d like to have been higher, but instead it’s my fellow WSR driver Daryl DeLeon on pole so congratulations to him. My fight is with Dan Cammish and Dan Rowbottom so the focus is on getting ahead of them tomorrow and trying to secure third place in the points. I can’t wait to get this Laser Beamer back on the podium tomorrow.
Charles Rainford, LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR: “We had a strong FP1 and FP2, but unfortunately in Q2 I was caught on the wrong side of a tiny three hundredths of a second gap that stopped me moving into the pole shoot-out because of a tiny mistake I made on my fastest lap. That happens sometimes, but tomorrow I’ll be aiming to move forwards and finish as high as I can.”
Aiden Moffat, LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR: “Today was disappointing. In FP1 I had an electrical issue so I missed a lot of the session, but FP2 was pretty good. We made some changes for qualifying that didn’t really work, and if we’d had a trouble-free FP1 we’d have tried those settings earlier and realised they didn’t improve the BMW. We’ve always been stronger on Sundays this year so we’ll give it a go tomorrow.”
Dick Bennetts, Team Principal: “Daryl’s done a fantastic job to qualifying on pole for the second event in a row, and on a circuit that couldn’t be more different to Silverstone in its characteristics. We’ve had pole position for three of the past four events and topped every part of qualifying and all but one practice session across the past two rounds. This shows the improvements we’ve made since the mid-season break, and puts us in a good position to finish the season on a high.”
