EXCELR8 Motorsport at Donington: Team Vertu Starts BTCC Title Defence

Defending the BTCC title is hard. Doing it with four cars, a driver coming back after three years out of touring cars, and a brand new qualifying race format is harder. That is exactly what EXCELR8 Motorsport, running as Team Vertu, took on at Donington Park this weekend.

The team arrived as the 2025 Drivers' and Manufacturers' champions. The Hyundai i30 N Fastback is the benchmark car. The driver line up reads like a BTCC season preview piece. And by the end of Sunday evening, all four had points on the board, the reigning champion had been disqualified and reinstated, and the team still left Donington very much in the conversation.

Four drivers. Four very different race weekends.

• Tom Ingram (#80) – Two time BTCC champion, sixth season with EXCELR8, chasing a third title
• Tom Chilton (#3) – Six podiums in 2025, previous Donington opener winner, hunting his own title fight
• Ricky Collard (#11) – Returning to the BTCC for the first time since 2023, late signed, still adapting to front wheel drive
• Nicolas Hamilton (#28) – Over 150 BTCC starts and looking at his biggest campaign yet

The 2026 BTCC season introduces a qualifying race on Saturday that sets the Sunday grid. Dan Rowbottom won it on debut for Cataclean Plato Racing. For Team Vertu the big moment came before the flag dropped, with Ash Sutton and Tom Ingram making contact that left Sutton at the back of the grid and Ingram at the front. That exchange set up everything that came next.

Tom Ingram drove a near perfect opening race, leading on the medium compound tyre against a field on softs. On pace alone it should have been the headline act of the weekend. A post race check found a significant overboost on the Hyundai and Ingram was disqualified from the result.

Tom Chilton brought his car home ninth to pick up the first points of his Team Vertu 2026 campaign. Nicolas Hamilton finished 17th on his team debut, a solid first run and exactly what the team needed from a development run. Ricky Collard retired on lap 14, ending a weekend that had already felt like a steep reintroduction to the BTCC.

With Ingram unable to start and Hamilton forced out as well, the team needed somebody to pick up the weekend. That was Ricky Collard, returning to the BTCC with a new team, a new tyre package and very little testing time, and he brought the Hyundai home eighth for a points finish. Chilton took 13th.

For context, Collard's last BTCC season was 2023. Returning after that long, in a car you have barely driven, in a race run with a totally new Saturday qualifying format, and still scoring points, is the kind of weekend that sets a base to build from. We were expecting damage control. We got competitive elbows out Ricky that fans love.

Starting from the back of the grid after the weekend's troubles, Tom Ingram carved his way to second behind Ash Sutton. A 48 win, 49 win, championship leading Sutton weekend could not be prevented, but Ingram reminded everyone that the double champion is not going anywhere. If you want to know what a title defence looks like on a bad weekend, that was it.

• The Hyundai i30 N Fastback still has the pace. Ingram's on track pace in race one and his climb through the field in race three both confirmed it.
• Collard is going to find the rhythm. Eighth on minimal running is a starting point, not a ceiling.
• Chilton is steady. Two points scoring races in a season opener keeps him in the championship picture.
• Hamilton's programme is a long game. The full season was always the measure, not round one.

Every car that went out this weekend carried sponsor partners who need more than a sticker on a front wing. They need audience. They need activation. And they need it while the race weekend is still happening, not the following week when the news cycle has moved on.

We ran trackside photography, reels, short form video, sponsor call outs and team posts across Team Vertu's and EXCELR8 Motorsport's channels in real time over both days. This weekend also marked the first competitive outing featuring Antonia Rankin, Team Vertu's new on camera presenter, pulling driver reactions and paddock content that turns race day moments into sponsor ready assets.

This is the work we do for motorsport clients. It is why teams partner with us for full seasons rather than one off jobs.

SuperHub delivers commercial creative for BTCC teams, series and individual drivers. We do the parts that matter outside of the race itself: audience growth, sponsor activation, driver personal brand, and the hard evidence a sponsor needs when it is time to renew.

• Teams: if your content output is the weakest link in your commercial package, we can fix that. Book a call and we will talk through your season plan.
• Sponsors: if you are evaluating a motorsport investment and want to understand what proper activation looks like, come and see what we do. Grid entry points with Team Vertu start from £10,000.
• Drivers: if you are serious about building a commercial career in touring cars, start with us.

Contact info@superhub.biz or call +441803262074

Contact Team Vertu https://www.excelr8motorsport.com/ or email info@excelr8motorsport.com or call 01379870880

SuperHub is the creative services partner for Team Vertu and EXCELR8 Motorsport in the 2026 BTCC season, covering trackside media, photography, social content and sponsor activation.