Points in All Three and a Rookie Season in the Round: Lewis Gilbert at Brands Hatch

Eighteen races, six weekends, one barrel roll, one Jack Sears Trophy, one Goodyear Wingfoot Award, and a last day at Brands Hatch that finished with points in all three races. That is Lewis Gilbert's first BTCC campaign in one sentence, and when you remember that in July he had never sat in a touring car at a race meeting, it reads rather well. The Grand Prix circuit finale was not spectacular. It was something more useful than that. It was consistent, and consistency is the thing rookies find hardest to buy.

Brands Hatch's Grand Prix circuit hosted Rounds 28, 29 and 30 on 10 and 11 October, the final weekend of the 2026 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship and the sixth of Gilbert's part season in the number 29 WSR BMW 330i M Sport.

Practice promised, qualifying did not deliver

Free practice was the most encouraging session of his season, 12th fastest and inside a second of the top time on a circuit he was learning in a touring car for the first time, with team mate Daryl De Leon quickest of everyone. The GP loop suits a driver who can carry speed through Hawthorn and Westfield and commit to Sheene, and the single seater background was showing. Qualifying was less kind, 19th with a 1:30.240, and the qualifying race brought 20th, which meant Sunday was always going to be about what he could do from the back half of the grid rather than the front.

Three races, three points finishes

The answer was a fair amount. 13th in Race 1 on a day when Charles Rainford crashed the sister BMW at Dingle Dell and Gordon Shedden retired on the opening lap, 15th in Race 2 behind De Leon's fifth, and 15th again in the chaotic finale with its two safety cars and the first corner pile up that took out Tom Ingram and Tom Chilton. Nothing flashy, nothing broken, points every time out, and a 1:30.655 best lap in Race 2 that was quicker than his qualifying time and within three tenths of the race winner. On a weekend when experienced drivers were binning cars at Paddock and Dingle Dell, keeping a BMW straight and in the points three times is not nothing.

The season in the round

So what have we learned? That the speed is real, because Croft showed it. That the resilience is real, because Donington showed it, and the way he came back from that accident told you more than any lap time. And that the circuits with a single short lap and no margin, like Silverstone, are where the gap to the established names still shows, because touring car racing is about data and reference points as much as talent, and you cannot download those from a GB3 car. Six weekends in, he has a Jack Sears Trophy, a Wingfoot Award, and a stack of finishes to his name, and he goes into the winter with the one thing every rookie needs most, which is evidence.

Follow Lewis at lewisgilbertracing.com and the team at wsr-racing.com.

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