TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA endured a tough start to the 2025 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship campaign at Donington Park last weekend (26-27 April), but Ronan Pearson nevertheless demonstrated the potential of the locally-built Toyota Corolla GR Sport as he walked away with the Jack Sears Trophy.
After clocking almost 150 laps between them around the Leicestershire circuit’s ‘National’ layout during free practice, Pearson, fellow Scot Gordon Shedden, Árón Taylor-Smith and BTCC rookie James Dorlin headed into the three-part qualifying session.
On his Toyota debut, Pearson starred by progressing through to the ‘Quick Six’ shootout, going on to grab fifth on the grid amongst the 24 high-calibre protagonists. From there, the 23-year-old Fife native ran up at the sharp end throughout the curtain-raising contest, taking the chequered flag fifth – barely half-a-second adrift of defending champion Jake Hill – but a ten-second penalty for a false start would relegate him to a frustrated 13th.
Brake problems in race two restricted Pearson to 18th place, before he climbed to 14th in race three, in so doing securing enough points to win the weekend’s Jack Sears Trophy award – disputed by drivers with no more than one prior podium finish to their name at the beginning of the season.
Taylor-Smith missed out on joining his team-mate in the ‘Quick Six’ in qualifying by a scant 27 thousandths-of-a-second. After lining up ninth, an electrical gremlin then forced the Irishman out of the opener, with his bad luck persisting in race two, when the reigning Independents’ title-winner grittily fought his way from the rear of the field up into the points only for a recurrence of his earlier issue to bring his bid to a premature conclusion again.
Despite being on the less durable soft-compound tyres for the day’s finale, Taylor-Smith produced another impressive charge through the pack to belatedly open his points-scoring account for 2025 with a hard-earned 12th place.
There was misfortune, too, for Shedden, whose 13th position in qualifying would prove to be something of an omen. Battle scars in race one resulted in the three-time champion being shown the mechanical warning flag for trailing bodywork, obliging him to pit and leaving him a lap down in 19th.
A characteristically feisty display in race two saw Shedden gain eight places to wind up 11th – engaging in some entertaining duels along the way in front of the live ITV4 television cameras and an appreciative, sun-kissed trackside crowd. The BTCC returnee was up to ninth in race three – latching onto the tail of a multi-car tussle for fifth – until contact at the chicane pitched his Corolla into a big slide that he did well to catch. The loss of time nonetheless dropped him outside of the points, from where he recovered to 13th.
On his maiden appearance in the UK’s premier motor racing series, former Renault UK Clio Cup runner-up Dorlin gave an excellent account of himself – although his weekend was similarly not without its dramas. From a very respectable 16th on the grid, the Yorkshireman lost ground at the start of race one but had worked his way onto the cusp of the points-paying positions in a busy midfield scrap when a dislodged rim – the legacy of an unsighted brush with the tyre stack at the chicane – sent him into the Redgate gravel trap.
Better fortunes in race two yielded Dorlin’s first BTCC points in 14th place as he ran in close company with his fellow Corolla drivers, and the 26-year-old even led the Toyota quartet for a while in the finale as he stormed up to ninth, but as his soft tyres faded, so inevitably did his pace and he ultimately slipped to 21st position.
The action will resume at Brands Hatch’s ‘Indy’ circuit on 10-11 May.
Gordon Shedden, Driver, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA, said: “It feels like I’ve never been away! We should have been further up the grid in qualifying; we lacked a little bit of balance and the set-up wasn’t quite where we had expected it to be, and Sunday obviously wasn’t the best day either. The level in the championship is so high now, that if you start further down the order, it’s tough to battle through. I got driven into left, right and centre, but when we had a clean run, you could see we’ve got some genuine pace in race trim.
“We clearly need to do a better job in qualifying, but the biggest positive from Donington is that we definitely made the car better as the weekend progressed, so hopefully we can carry that momentum forward with us to Brands Hatch and start off on a stronger footing from the outset.”
Árón Taylor-Smith, Driver, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA, said: “We had a bit of a challenging run in free practice, with a few small problems outside of the team’s control that limited our track time, so going into qualifying, we were more on the back foot than we would have liked. To then miss out on the ‘Quick Six’ by only three hundredths-of-a-second was a really good effort considering they were my first proper ‘push’ laps of the day. I was quite happy, the car was in a good place and we were ready to come out swinging on Sunday.
“I unfortunately then had issues in the first two races, but from the back of the grid in race three, we managed to come through to 12th, pulling off some good moves along the way. I think if we had started somewhere inside the top ten, we could have stayed there, but having to work the tyres so hard to fight through the pack just takes so much life out of them. Still, having hopefully now got our little gremlins out of the way, going to Brands – which has traditionally been a better circuit for me – we should be in the hunt.”
Ronan Pearson, Driver, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA, said: “That was certainly a weekend of two halves! Saturday was cracking; I was proud of myself and the team in qualifying. Everybody did a great job and executed really well, I put all three sectors of the lap together and we delivered a mega result – we definitely got the best out of the session, and I was elated to line up fifth.
“Unfortunately, I only have myself to blame for the jump-start in race one – no excuses, that one was entirely down to me. The car felt good, we had strong pace and we finished up there on merit, but I let it go. I was gutted to lose fifth place, and the penalty made the following two races harder than they needed to be as well.
“The brake issue in race two was borderline a DNF, but I managed to nurse the car home. That paid off, because it meant we still scored some points towards the Jack Sears Trophy, which we then won in race three so at least there was one silver lining to an otherwise tough day.”
James Dorlin, Driver, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA, said: “My first weekend in the BTCC was always going to be a big learning curve, and I learnt a heck of a lot! Moving to front wheel-drive has been the biggest challenge – the braking technique, how you transfer the weight in the car and how you get on the throttle is all very, very different.
“We were in the mix straightaway in free practice, which was good, although we maybe went a step too far with the set-up in qualifying, as it made the car too loose. Race one was a baptism of fire, but we gained nine places in race two and then over the first half of race three, we got up into the top ten and I felt quicker than the guys ahead until my tyres dropped off, so once the Toyota is properly underneath me, I think we’ve got the pace and potential to be battling for the top six.
“It’s all a bit trial-and-error at the moment and I need to go back over the data to evaluate everything, but the first weekend is in the books, I’ve got some points on the board and now we can build on this moving forward.”
