Tom Chilton heads into 2026 with the confidence of a driver who has found his home, entering his fifth consecutive season with EXCELR8 Motorsport in what marks the longest spell with a single team in his distinguished British Touring Car Championship career.
The experienced campaigner enjoyed a successful 2025 season, securing two victories, two second places, two third-place finishes, pole position and multiple fastest laps, bringing his highest championship finish in the last five years. It was a campaign that reminded the paddock of Chilton's ability when the package suits his driving style.
“This is my longest spell with one team. That is worth pointing out, actually. They must be doing something right. I think Justina Williams is doing something right.”
"Last year was a successful year for me because the cars were harder to drive," Chilton explained. "With all my experience, that's how I like driving. I wear those silly heart rate monitors. My heart rate lowers when I go more sideways. I'm weird. I know most people get more like, ah! And the heart rate goes up. Whereas I'm like, ah, happy place. I'm going sideways.
“Without the hybrid in the cars, they were lighter and more twitchy. They were more on an edge, which is how I like driving."
The stability within the team has been crucial to Chilton's upward momentum. Having spent multiple seasons with EXCELR8 Motorsport, the operation has been built around his preferences.
"I feel like the team have bent over backwards for me and done everything that I've asked for," he said. "They've even moved from Suffolk and Ipswich all the way up to Droitwich to be inside Team Dynamics. The whole team is moulded around me and I get on really well now with Tom Ingram."
That relationship with teammate Ingram has evolved into one of mutual respect and collaboration, something demonstrated during a memorable moment at Donington Park last season.
"You can see that we've got a good chemistry," Chilton said. "At Donington Park, when I was leading the race, I backed off and let him through to get some points, and then we swapped over again. Whereas if he was a bad teammate, he wouldn't have let me back through, or I wouldn't have let him through to start with.
"We started that off, and then NAPA [Racing UK] kind of had to follow suit. It's nice that we've got such a good relationship that we can work together, and we'll be inch by inch, but we'll never take each other out. And that's through respect."
The partnership with race engineer Barry Plowman has also strengthened over time. "We've been working together for years really. But he now fully gets what I'm saying and he now believes what I'm saying!” Chilton explained.
Looking ahead to 2026, Chilton welcomes the introduction of the Saturday Qualifying Race format, believing it plays to his strengths as an experienced, consistent finisher.
"You've got to finish to get points, and I’m, on the whole, quite good at finishing," he said. "I think the more races the better for me to be honest. All the young hotheads who might be quicker in one race might DNF on the next, so I think the more there are, the better it is for me.
"It's good all round. The fans who are staying the night, whether they're camping or in the caravan or in a hotel down the road and travel to watch us, they get to actually watch a race on the Saturday and talk about that over dinner Saturday night before they watch three more on Sunday."
As for targets, Chilton's ambitions are straightforward. "I've got six lovely trophies currently the other side of those doors on the windowsills, and I would like to have more than six next year. You just always want to do better, don't you?"
Beyond his racing commitments, Chilton maintains a rigorous training schedule throughout the off-season. "I'm doing six hours training a week every week, two hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday," he said. "And I'm a parent of four kids, so there's no breaks."
With continuity, experience, and a proven winning package at his disposal, Chilton enters the 2026 BTCC season determined to add to his trophy collection and challenge at the sharp end of the UK's premier motorsport championship once again.
