WSR begin a new British Touring Car Championship season this weekend at the very same venue – Donington Park in the East Midlands – where the team made their series debut 30 years ago.
Incredible success has been achieved in the intervening period including a record 137 race wins, five Drivers’ Championships and 18 overall titles, plus nine Independent Drivers’ and Teams’ crowns.
For 2026 the team from Sunbury-on-Thames is targeting more success with a pair of BMW 330i M Sport race cars driven by two of the series’ most promising up-and-comers, Daryl De Leon and Charles Rainford.
Pre-season running has been successful for the team from with Daryl topping the timesheets in the recent official BTCC test at Croft and Charles doing likewise at Brands Hatch last week.
While the 1.9-mile Donington National track is less suited to the BMW’s rear-wheel-drive layout than either Croft or Brands Hatch, it has provided nine wins for WSR, who enter the season as an Independent team for the first time since winning the categories for non-Manufacturer Drivers and Teams in 2014.
Cambridgeshire racer Daryl, 20, made his first appearance for WSR at Donington last year, beginning a successful season in which he scored his first overall victory and won the Jack Sears Trophy.
Charles, from Horsham, East Sussex, made his BTCC debut at Donington Park in 2025 after stepping up from the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, but took just one further weekend to become a race winner. He finished eighth place – as leading rookie – in the points.
HOW TO WATCH
While all races will be broadcast in HD on ITV4 from 1045 on Sunday, agreement means that fans outside the UK and North America will be able to watch every BTCC race live on the BTCC YouTube channel. Qualifying and the Qualifying Race will be broadcast on the ITV Sport YouTube channel without geographic restrictions.
RULE CHANGES
The key regulation change for 2026 is the introduction of a Qualifying Race – the ‘Race to Pole’ on Saturdays, in what is part of a major shake-up of the weekend format.
Saturdays will now feature a single, 40-minute Free Practice session in the morning, instead of a pair of 35-minute sessions.
Qualifying is now a single session, split into two groups of 15 minutes each; one for drivers finishing in odd-numbered positions in practice and one for evens.
The fastest driver overall takes pole position for the Qualifying Race with others from their session lining up on the odd side of the grid in speed order and the same happening on the even side with drivers from the slower session.
The Qualifying Race, which will be two-thirds the length of a standard Sunday race, will follow with the finishing order setting the grid for Sunday’s opening race and points awarded to the top 15 finishers. Sunday’s race format is unchanged.
The series’ TOCA Turbo Boost (TTB) rules have also been tweaked with drivers now able to activate their boost earlier and for longer than in 2025. At Donington both Charles and Daryl will be able to use a maximum 20 seconds of boost per lap in qualifying (v 15s in 2025) and the Qualifying Race, once they are travelling above 105kph (v 115kph in 2025).
In the opening race on Sunday both will be able to use Boost for 10 laps (v eight in 2025). These figures will be re-set on a sliding scale for Races Two and Three based on the previous race’s finishing order and then for each subsequent round based on championship order, with those highest placed allowed less usage than other drivers.
HOW TO WATCH
All races will be broadcast in HD on ITV4 on Sunday while fans outside the UK and North America will be able to watch every BTCC race live on the BTCC YouTube channel. Qualifying and the Qualifying Race will be broadcast on the ITV Sport YouTube channel without geographic restrictions.
WHAT THEY SAID…
Charles Rainford: “It’s hard to believe a year has passed since my BTCC debut, and so much has happened in that time. I knew the racing element would be hard, but it’s absolutely brutal compared to what I’ve experienced before and that definitely took some adjusting to. I feel like a BTCC driver now coming into season two and I’m excited about what we can do this year. Testing has gone well and the updates to the BMW seem to be working, so for the season as a whole, I’m certainly targeting wins and podiums, so let’s see if we can have a run at a title.”
Daryl De Leon: “Last year, my first with WSR, was huge. First win, first pole positions and the Jack Sears Trophy… It went so quickly and now we’re back, almost at the first race of 2026 and ready to go again. I’m back in the same BMW with the same engineer and that consistency of the environment will be important as we aim to go even better and turn more of our good qualifying results into podiums and, ultimately, wins. We have a strong package and while Donington – a front-wheel-drive track – might not be the best place to show everybody what we can do, I think we can finish well.”
Dick Bennetts, Team Principal: “Thirty years and just over a week ago we made our BTCC debut at Donington Park and here we are, 18 championship titles and 137 race wins later, back at the same track to start a new season with two updated BMWs and the two most exciting young drivers on the grid. It’s been very good to top the times at both official pre-season tests, but we should remember that Brands Hatch and Croft have traditionally been circuits that have suited the BMW whereas Donington’s shorter layout has always favoured front-wheel-drive cars. It’s also difficult to know who has shown their full hand, but we know our BMWs have been improved over the winter in a number of areas. The new Qualifying Race format is great for fans, but an added challenge for teams, which is something our years of experience should help us navigate.”
