The British Touring Car Championship continues on the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit this weekend with WSR targeting a re-run of last year’s record-breaking on-track achievements.
The 2025 event on the 1.2-mile Indy layout was one of the most successful in WSR’s 30-year BTCC history as the team scored pole position, triumphed in all three races and, in doing so, broke the series’ all-time wins record for teams.
Charles Rainford and Daryl De Leon achieved their own milestones that weekend as each scored their maiden series win aboard their BMW 330i M Sports, and the pair are back aiming to use that form to propel them to further glory this time.
Charles enjoyed an excellent weekend at the Donington Park opener in April as he achieved a podium finish in the opening race and scored 43 points across the event – his second-best career BTCC weekend points total to date.
Holding second place in the championship standings – also a career best – does present the 27-year-old, who was fastest in the official Media Day test at the track a month ago, with one critical issue, however.
His high championship position means his BMW will be one of the most heavily-restricted cars through Saturday’s sessions (including the new-for-2026 Qualifying Race) and for Race One on Sunday; the Horsham driver being allowed less use of the series’ turbo-boost function than all but one other rival, under series regulations.
Daryl, by contrast, has no boost restrictions coming into the weekend, meaning his BMW has the potential to be one of the fastest cars on Saturday and in Race One.
The Anglo-Filipino enjoyed a superb 2025 event at Brands Hatch as he scored his first win and was in inspired form at the season-closing weekend on the longer Grand Prix layout as he took pole position and secured the Jack Sears Trophy crown.
The Cambridgeshire-based 20-year-old endured a challenging Donington with a potential podium finish being taken away when he was spun by a rival in Race Three. This followed a strong recovery from 12th on the grid to fifth place in Race Two.
Both aim to add to WSR’s impressive tally of 20 wins and 51 podiums on the Indy layout on what is expected to be a dry and warm weekend.
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 Extra 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 now feature a single, 40-minute Free Practice session in the morning, instead of a pair of 35-minute sessions.
Qualifying is just 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 is two-thirds the length of a standard Sunday race, will follow with the finishing order setting the grid for Sunday’s opener 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 Brands Hatch Charles will be restricted to using his boost for only three seconds per lap during qualifying and in the Qualifying Race once he’s travelling above 135kph, and for five laps during Race One. Daryl will have a full boost allocation of 20 seconds per lap from 105kph and for 14 laps in Race One.
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.
At Brands Hatch the soft-compound Goodyear will be the standard tyre while the medium must also be used in one of Sunday’s three races.
WHAT THEY SAID…
Charles Rainford: “Back to Brands Hatch and to the best memories of my racing career! Becoming a BTCC winner in what was only my second-ever weekend in the series felt incredible – nobody had done that for over 20 years and it took quite a while for that to properly sink in. A year ago we had a horrible Donington so we needed to bounce back at Brands, but this time Donington was very strong for us so we’re in a very different position. Brands Hatch should be the best track of the year for the BMW and if the warm weather we’ve had recently continues, that could help us too. I’m looking forward to it.”
Daryl De Leon: “Taking my first win at Brands Hatch last year was amazing. We judged things to perfection in that race. Now we’re back on the Indy Circuit in a very similar position to last year, following a tough Donington weekend. The big benefit for me is that my BMW has the maximum boost for Saturday and Race One, so that should give me a good chance of turning in some good results. We were mega on the newly-resurfaced track last year. Now that it’s had 12 months to rubber-in, it probably won’t benefit us as much, but the two slow corners at Druids and Clearways are definitely areas where we can use the BMW’s ultra-strong traction to help us go forwards.”
Dick Bennetts, Team Principal: “It’s not very often that you win three races in a day in the BTCC and even less so with three different drivers, so to do that at Brands Hatch a year ago was a great achievement for everybody at WSR. Breaking the series’ all-time wins record on the same day was the icing on the cake. Achieving that took a lot of hard work and I have no doubt it will be just as hard this weekend, even if Brands Hatch is a track that the BMWs have usually gone well at. Charles and Daryl are in very different places in terms of the boost situation coming into the weekend, so we’ll probably need to have two very different strategies to maximise the points potential when their BMWs should be at their strongest. It’s all part of the challenge of the BTCC, but I think we should be more competitive than at Donington.”
