After back-to-back trips to the north, WSR and BMW return to familiar territory this weekend as the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship title fight intensifies on Donington Park’s Grand Prix circuit.
The longer version of the East Midlands track has a significant place in WSR history as it was the location of the team’s BTCC debut in 1996 and of a podium treble last year.
With Jake Hill in the thick of the championship battle, Colin Turkington remaining in contention for the crown and Adam Morgan riding high after his Knockhill podium, the East Midlands provides more chances of success for the BMW 330e M Sport drivers.
Hill’s 43-point haul at Knockhill was the second-best of the weekend and included a sixth win of the season that reduced his gap to the series lead, Tom Ingram, from 21 points to just three.
The Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport driver was a double podium-finisher on the 2.5-mile GP circuit last year and took pole position and a win on his WSR debut on the shorter ‘National’ layout in 2022.
Team BMW’s Turkington is currently the BTCC’s most in-form driver with pole position and a race win at each of the past two events and was the highest scorer at Knockhill.
While the Northern Irishman has significantly reduced his arrears in the championship as a result, he is looking for another big points haul to climb from his current fifth place in the Drivers’ standings as he hunts a record fifth title.
Team-mate Morgan’s Knockhill podium was the 42nd of his BTCC career and helped Team BMW claim the Teams’ trophy as the highest scorers of the weekend.
The Lancashire racer marked his Team BMW debut with a podium at Donington in 2023 on the shorter National Circuit and again made the rostrum on the GP loop come the summer.
Jake Hill, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport, said: "I’m really excited to be heading to Donington Park and taking on the GP configuration. We had a great event there last season with a brace of podiums so the goal this weekend is to replicate thatand more out-score my title rivals. We've made great progress through the season and enjoyed a strong weekend in Scotland last time out which puts us in a great place heading into this weekend. With the hybrid allowance, we know that qualifying and that opening race will be a challenge but we overcame that at Knockhill and extracted everything from the BMW. We need to continue that high level of performance this weekend to stay battling for the title and I'm fully confident we can do that."
Colin Turkington, Team BMW, said: “Three rounds to go and after we top-scored at Knockhill we’ve closed the points gap quite a lot. I’ve been racing in the BTCC long enough to know that anything can happen to anybody so it’s so important to keep the pressure on and do everything we can to increase our chances of staying in the title fight. We took more than 20 points out of the lead at Knockhill and if we can do that again, it’s anybody’s for the taking. We’ve proved we’re a very strong package right now with poles and wins since the summer break and we’ll be looking to maintain that.”
Adam Morgan, Team BMW, said: “It was brilliant to get back on the podium at Knockhill. We were fast all weekend and had two really strong finishes that were indicative of the form we’ve shown whenever we’ve got the BMW spot-on in qualifying. Donington GP is quite a long lap so we’ll have fewer attempts in qualifying in what are very short sessions and what we do there will have a bigger impact than normal on raceday because we’ll only run one kind of tyre and those swings in performance you often see from race to race won’t be as big. The podium or better is definitely the aim.”
Dick Bennetts, Team Principal, said: “We have some very strong momentum right now and it’s going to be important to not just carry that into Donington, but through the weekend too. Having a single tyre compound for this weekend will remove one of the strategic challenges, but that’s likely to make qualifying more important than normal, especially with the long lap meaning drivers have fewer attempts to get around. We had a strong BMW last year with two cars on the podium and we’ve found more speed this year so the aim will certainly be to finish strongly and continue the battle for the Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ titles.”
