Lewis Gilbert bounced back in style from his disastrous weekend at Donington Park with his best weekend in the 2026 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship, winning the Jack Sears Trophy at Croft, finishing in the points in all three races, while Charles Rainford also collected some silverware with the independents’ victory in race two.
With wet conditions at the start of the day, Daryl De Leon had a brilliant getaway from fifth on the grid and was briefly up to third. Unfortunately, in the greasy conditions, he ran wide at the chicane and dropped down the order, though managed to gather himself back up and recover to fifth at the line. A subsequent sporting penalty for a pre-race starting procedure for not having the correct tyres on the car at the three-minute board dropped him down to 20th.
Rainford battled from 11th on the grid to make it into the top ten, finishing an impressive seventh, while Gilbert put on a fantastic performance, benefiting in part from many drivers opting to start the race on the hard tyre. The Scottish racer held his ground to finish tenth and score his first BTCC points.
In the second bout, De Leon was making good progress on the soft tyre, and was up to fourth on lap four, before a collision dropped him to the back of the pack. The Anglo-Filipino then did well to recover to 13th.
Rainford had a great run to finish fifth and score his third independents’ class victory of the season, while there was another star performance from Gilbert, finishing 11th and the best-placed of the Jack Sears Trophy drivers for the second race in a row.
With the circuit now fully dry for the weekend's final race, and with all three WSR BMW 330i M Sports starting on the hard tyre, it was a more difficult race for the team. Rainford had made good progress early on and was as high as fourth, but was spun and dropped to the tail of the field, recovering to finish 15th. De Leon had a steady run to finish 13th, while Gilbert was the best-placed of WSR's drivers in 12th, and so at the end of the day he collected his first Jack Sears Trophy.
Lewis Gilbert: “I can’t believe I’m standing here with this. All I can say is a big thanks to the team, after what happened at Donington Park just to get the car back and going was a task, let alone getting here and taking a Jack Sears win. Massive thanks to WSR, honestly this would not be possible without them.”
Daryl De Leon: “It has been a tough day, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Race One I had a really good result and was battling for a podium, lost the rear and ended up down in tenth. I had a really good recovery drive to come back to get the independents’ win, but then I got a 60-second penalty and I lost that. In Race Two we got smashed up a bit fighting for the podium, and then with the last race on the hard tyre, it was always going to be a difficult one. One to forget here at Croft, and we’ll regroup for Silverstone. Congratulations to my teammate Lewis Gilbert, mega drives from him all this weekend.
Charles Rainford: “We had a decent day. Every time we started a race we were a bit higher up and we came away with an independents’ win. It was a tricky Race Three - we got turned around by another car, but until then we were running really strong. So two top ten finishes, not where we want to be, and we are thinking maybe this isn’t really a BMW circuit anymore, but our heads are held high.
