EXCELR8 at Brands Hatch: Ingram Wins the BTCC, Ovenden Wins the JCW, and the Whole Operation Lights Up

So this is the one. The weekend where you look at the result sheet on the way home and realise the EXCELR8 Motorsport operation hasn't just turned up to Brands Hatch, it's properly delivered across the entire programme. A BTCC race win for Tom Ingram. A MINI Challenge JCW race win for Tom Ovenden. Podiums, fastest laps, class wins, recovery drives, the lot. Three race weekends in for some of the JCW programme, two for the BTCC drivers, and the operation is firing.

Right. Let's go through it.

BTCC: Ingram, Collard, Chilton

Tom Ingram: first win of 2026

Race 3 belonged to Tom Ingram, and frankly it had to. The reigning champion had spent the early weekend doing the slightly unsexy work of recovering from the Donington overboost exclusion, banking points, staying clean, keeping the title fight alive. Then at Brands Hatch in the reverse grid race he started fifth, was up to first by the end of lap one in the Team Vertu Hyundai, took the lead at Paddock Hill Bend and disappeared. No drama, no contact, no question marks. A controlled, dominant drive that finished nearly four seconds clear of Ash Sutton at the flag.

Add that to the third in Race 1 and the fourth in Race 2 and Ingram leaves Kent second in the Drivers' Championship on 82 points, a fortnight after being disqualified from victory in the season opener. The man knows how to absorb a blow and respond. The title fight with Sutton is now properly on.

Ricky Collard: the underdog who needs a full season

If you were trying to write a case for why Ricky Collard belongs in a full-season BTCC seat, this weekend wrote half of it for you.

Race 1, Collard finished second behind Sutton after one of the best drives of his career. He actually got the Hyundai past Sutton briefly on lap 12 down the start-finish straight, before the four-time champion took it back at Surtees. Then Collard tried the same move again. And again. He absolutely refused to settle for second and only just lost out at the flag by nine-tenths.

Race 2, he was on the podium again in third behind Taylor-Smith and Sutton, holding his own in conditions that were swallowing other drivers whole. Two podiums on a weekend where he barely featured in pre-race conversations.

Race 3 didn't go his way. Collard retired the Hyundai after fourteen laps with damage, ending what could have been a podium-or-better weekend on a duller note than the performance deserved. The pace when he was running suggests it would have been a hat-trick of trophies.

Look, the BTCC has always needed characters and racers, and right now Ricky Collard is both. The elbows are out, the overtakes are committed, the pace is genuine, the result sheet has him fourth in the championship on 67 points after two weekends and only a point off Mikey Doble for third. The Championship is better with him in it and a full season behind him would do everyone, including the broadcast, a favour. We won't be the only people saying that this week.

Tom Chilton: a tough weekend, pace still there

Tom Chilton had the kind of weekend that happens in motorsport whether you've done one season or twenty. Some of it was on him, some of it wasn't, all of it ends up in the result sheet anyway.

Saturday's qualifying race saw the contact between Adam Morgan, Charles Rainford and Tom in the Hyundai which sent him tumbling down the order, the sort of three-car incident that's nobody's fault and everybody's fault at the same time. Then in Race 1 he turned in one of the drives of the day, hauling the i30 from fourteenth on the grid up to fifth on softs, right on the tail of Dan Cammish , which would have looked even better had he not taken a five-second penalty for an out-of-position start. Same result on the road, but the penalty was the penalty.

Race 2 he was in the fight again before going off into the grass at Paddock Hill Bend in the worst of the wet weather, ending his afternoon with a retirement. Race 3 he brought the car home twelfth.

The pace is in the car. The pace is in Tom. The weekend just didn't quite slot together the way it needs to. That's racing, and Snetterton is a fresh sheet.

Nicolas Hamilton

Nic continues to learn the Team Vertu Hyundai and the BTCC field in 2026. Eleventh in Race 2 was his best finish of the weekend. The character of the man is genuinely good for the championship and his presence on the grid matters beyond his finishing position. Onwards.

MINI Challenge JCW: a Tom Ovenden weekend, and a hell of a Driver Development Programme statement

If anyone's still wondering whether the EXCELR8 Driver Development Programme is more than a logo on a car door, Brands Hatch is the answer.

All three Driver Development drivers - Tom Ovenden, Josh Porter and Nathan Edwards - were disqualified from qualifying for technical infringements, putting them at the back of the grid for the weekend's opener. By the time the chequered flag fell on the final race, between them they'd taken a race win, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, an eighth, two ninths, a fastest lap and a stack of championship points.

That is not the recovery of a driver development programme. That is the recovery of a driver development programme that actually works.

Tom Ovenden: Race 2 winner

Race 2 was Tom Ovenden's. From P4 on the partially reversed grid, he took the win in damp, tricky conditions, by 0.284 seconds over team-mate Olivier Algieri after Ovenden had only just got into the right end of the field following Saturday's qualifying disqualification. A genuinely brilliant drive in conditions that were catching out far more experienced racers.

Olivier Algieri: P2 + P3 + Rookie class winner twice

Olivier Algieri put the EXCELR8 Motorsport MINI on the podium in two of the three races. Second in Race 2, third in Race 3, Rookie class winner in both. Qualifying third overall on Saturday before the disallowed lap times shuffled the order. Algieri's start to his JCW campaign in the EXCELR8 colours is the sort of weekend that turns Rookie of the Year contention into Rookie of the Year favourite.

Josh Porter, Nathan Edwards, the wider field

Josh Porter set the fastest lap of Race 1 from the back of the grid after the qualifying DQ and brought the Driver Development MINI home in seventh on a recovery drive that had no right to look that easy. Fourth in Race 2 backed it up. Nathan Edwards was sixth in Race 2 and eighth in Race 3, points each time out.

In the wider EXCELR8 Motorsport line-up, Harry Campey took a fifth in Race 1, his best finish of the weekend. Will Crooks took the DR class win and DR fastest lap in Race 3 in damp conditions. Ahmet-Cemil Cipa was inside the top twenty in all three races and took the DR fastest lap in Race 2.

Seven EXCELR8 cars on the JCW grid, four podium-or-class-podium results, a race win, multiple fastest laps and three drivers who started the weekend disqualified from qualifying. That's a programme delivering at every level.

The partners across the operation

EXCELR8 has a strong line-up of commercial partners across the cars and the championships it operates in. The headline names visible at Brands Hatch:

• Team Vertu — title partner for the BTCC programme, branding the Hyundais for Ingram, Collard, Chilton and Hamilton
• Draper Tools — the Hampshire-based UK tool manufacturer trading since 1919, one of the most recognised tool brands in British industry
• Hansford Sensors — the High Wycombe specialists behind market-leading industrial vibration monitoring technology used across global manufacturing and process industries
• HRX UK — bespoke FIA-approved racewear and teamwear, hand-made in Italy and supplied through the Wakefield UK operation
• Millers Oils — the Yorkshire-based independent lubricants and treatments manufacturer, in motorsport since 1887 and one of the most respected oil names in the paddock

Every result the operation puts on the table is content and value for the commercial partners on every door of every car. That matters when you're presenting next year's sponsorship case to a prospective backer.

If you'd like to talk about partnering with EXCELR8 or any other team in the paddock, we can help.

Where EXCELR8 sits after Brands

In the BTCC: a race win, three podium finishes across the line-up, the reigning champion fully back in the title fight, and a returning racer in Collard making one of the loudest cases of the season for a full programme.

In the MINI Challenge JCW: a race win, multiple podiums, fastest laps, class wins, and a Driver Development Programme that's now properly graduated from "promising" to "delivering".

Snetterton next, May Bank Holiday weekend, for the BTCC. Different track, different challenges, but the operation is in good shape and the drivers are firing.

The content side

SuperHub had boots on the ground all weekend producing trackside content for Team Vertu, EXCELR8 Motorsport and the EXCELR8 Driver Development Programme channels in real time. Driver post-race reactions captured with Antonia Rankin presenting again, sponsor activation posts pushed live, reels, race-by-race stills, the full programme. When the team is delivering three or four storylines a day across two championships, the content side becomes a serious sponsor asset rather than a nice-to-have. Brands Hatch was exactly that sort of weekend.

SuperHub partners with EXCELR8 Motorsport, Team Vertu and the EXCELR8 Driver Development Programme across the 2026 season delivering trackside content, PR and sponsor activation. To talk about motorsport sponsorship or content services, book a call or drop us a line.

Race results sourced from the official BTCC timing partner, TSL Timing , and the official BTCC website.