Ingram Wins in the Wet, Chilton Twice on the Podium: EXCELR8 at Silverstone

Tom Ingram ended his wait for a win in the pouring rain at Silverstone, Tom Chilton bagged two podiums on Saturday and Sunday morning, and the team gave a 57 year old Japanese rookie his first taste of the BTCC on the same weekend Ash Sutton took the title that Ingram had been defending. There was a lot going on. Some of it was brilliant, some of it was the sort of thing a team would rather not have on the results sheet, and all of it was EXCELR8 in a nutshell: never dull, never quite straightforward, and always racing.

Silverstone's National Circuit hosted Rounds 25, 26 and 27 on 26 and 27 September, the penultimate weekend of the 2026 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship.

Chilton leads the way on Saturday

Tom Chilton was the quickest Team VERTU Hyundai all weekend on single lap pace, third in qualifying with a 56.560, a hundredth off the pole time, and he converted it into third in the Saturday qualifying race behind the two Power Maxed Audis. Ingram was 14th in qualifying and 12th in the qualifying race, which told you that the i30 N was not where it needed to be on the National Circuit in the dry, and Nic Hamilton was 22nd and 20th respectively, going about his work in the usual quiet fashion.

Sunday opened with rain and with Chilton on the podium again, third in Race 1 behind the Audis of Aiden Moffat and Mikey Doble, a result that briefly read as second when Moffat was penalised for track limits before the team's appeal put the Scot back on top. Ingram was 13th and Hamilton 17th. Race 2 was dry and Sutton won it from 12th on the grid to seal his fifth title with a race to spare, Ingram eighth, Chilton 11th, and Hamilton 15th, which left Ingram eight points off Dan Cammish in the fight for second in the standings.

Then the rain came back

And then it absolutely poured. Ingram drew the front row for the reversed grid finale, lost two places on the first lap, and then simply drove through them. Around the outside of Aron Taylor-Smith at Luffield for third, past Dan Rowbottom's Mercedes after three corners side by side, and then the decisive one, around the outside of Moffat at Copse on lap 12 at a corner where nobody in their right mind goes around the outside in the wet. From there he set fastest lap as the track dried and won by four seconds from Sutton. His first win since Thruxton, his third of the year, and a reminder that whatever the championship table says, there is not a better wet weather driver in the paddock.

Chilton finished sixth in that one after a tight three way scrap with Cammish and Josh Cook, Hamilton was 20th, and Ingram left Silverstone 15 points clear of Cammish for the runner up spot going to Brands Hatch.

Kawashima's debut

The fourth car was in new hands. With Ricky Collard's programme having run its course at Croft, Osamu Kawashima stepped into the number 81 for his first BTCC meeting at 57 years of age. It was a tough weekend by any measure, 23rd in qualifying, a retirement in the qualifying race, and finishes two and three laps down on Sunday, and the team has since said he will get more testing miles rather than tackle the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit next time out. That is the right call. The BTCC is not a championship you learn on a race weekend, and there is no shame in a team saying so out loud.

So Ingram goes to the finale with a win under his belt and second in the championship to defend, Chilton has two podiums to show from a circuit that did not suit the car, and the team has one weekend left to put a full stop on a season that has rarely been simple.

Follow the team at excelr8motorsport.com.

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