Mikey Doble's Brands Hatch Storm: Two Independent Wins, a Podium, and Third in the Championship

So this is what a brand new car looks like when the driver's already figured out how to point it in the right direction. Two race weekends in, second outing for the LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon, and Mikey Doble has walked out of Brands Hatch with two Independent class wins, an overall podium in the final race of the day, third place in the Drivers' Championship on 68 points and the lead in the Independents standings. Not a bad return for a car the team only fired up in anger a fortnight ago at Donington.

Right. Let's unpack it.

Saturday: Race to Pole

The new Saturday qualifying race format put Mikey seventh on the grid for Sunday's opener after he qualified P7 in Q1. The Race to Pole itself was Ash Sutton's day, with Mikey holding station to bring the Audi home seventh on the road. Solid, sensible, points in the bag, no daft heroics. The kind of weekend opener that sets the tone.

Race 1: Independent class win

Race 1 on Sunday morning was Sutton's. His 50th career BTCC win, leading from lights to flag in changeable conditions with the rain teasing the field and never quite committing. The story behind him though was where the points were.

Mikey brought the Audi home seventh on the road and took the Independents class win. He had a brief sideways moment in light contact with Gordon Shedden's Toyota out on the Cooper Straight which he caught beautifully, because that's what you do when you've got the car underneath you. He didn't lose the place. He didn't compound the moment. He kept the points and kept the Independent crown. Independents win number one of the weekend.

Race 2: scrapping in the wet

Race 2 was the wet and slippery one. Properly slippery. The rain that had been threatening all morning finally arrived for real, and the race became a strategy and bravery competition that Árón Taylor-Smith won from P13 on the grid in one of the drives of the season so far. Mikey finished sixth on the road, scrapping with Power Maxed Racing stablemate Aiden Moffat for fifth in a battle that was exactly the kind of wheel-to-wheel scrap the BTCC sells to ITV4. No mistakes, no offs, third in the Independents class behind Taylor-Smith's outright winner and Moffat. Points banked again.

Race 3: the podium and Independents win number two

Race 3 was where the Audi properly stretched its legs. Tom Ingram took the win from P5 on the reverse grid in a controlled drive at the front of the field. Sutton came home second. And Mikey Doble brought the LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon home third on the road, overall podium, and Independents class winner for the second time of the weekend.

From third on the reverse grid, against drivers who've spent their entire careers in this paddock, in a car that's been racing for ten days. That's the result that defines the weekend.

Mikey, Moffat, Patterson

The thing is, Power Maxed Racing have a strong three-car line-up this year and it's worth noting where Mikey sits within it. Aiden Moffat has the BTCC pedigree, knows the package, has been doing this a long time and is sat sixth in the championship after Brands Hatch on 57 points. Dexter Patterson is the up-and-coming Power Maxed development driver, racing in Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing colours, who DNF'd Race 1 with damage and is still finding his rhythm in the season. Both are quality drivers in their own right and both will have weekends where they outpace Mikey, no question.

But right now, in the second weekend of the season, in a brand new car that nobody has properly developed yet, Mikey Doble is the lead Audi in the championship by some margin and the lead Independent driver in the BTCC full stop. That tells you something about how he's adapting to the package and to the level. It also tells you the team have given him a car that works.

The partners on the car

A motorsport campaign at this level is built on the brands that back the operation. Brands Hatch was a particularly important weekend on the commercial side because it was the first race meeting for The Dirt Terminator on Mikey's car, joining the line-up of partners who came on board ahead of the season and at Donington.

The full list of partners visible at Brands Hatch:

• LKQ Euro Car Parts — title partner of Mikey's car, part of the wider LKQ Europe group and one of the biggest names in vehicle parts distribution
• Power Maxed Racing — the Bidford-on-Avon based team running the Audi A3 Saloon programme
• The Dirt Terminator — Mikey's newest partner, joining the line-up at Brands Hatch
• Casesuk.com — Peli case specialists, joined the programme at Round 1 at Donington
• Steel Seal — title partner of the third Power Maxed Racing car for Dexter Patterson

Every result Mikey puts on the table is a result those partners can take to their own customers, sales teams and boards. Two Independent wins and a podium is a fortnight's worth of activation content for everyone on the bonnet.

If you'd like to talk about adding your brand to Mikey's car or to any other team in the paddock, we can help.

What this actually means for the championship

Third in the overall championship after two race weekends. Leading the Independents. Fourteen points off Tom Ingram for second and the season hasn't even hit Snetterton yet. This is the sort of start you build a championship campaign on. Not a flashy headline win, not a controversial post-race exclusion, just steady, intelligent racing that piles points up while everyone else fights for the optics.

Mikey said before the season started that the goal was to be in the conversation by mid-summer. He's in it now, eight rounds early. The Audi is competitive, the Independent points are accumulating, and the season is long.

Next stop Snetterton on 23-24 May. The car will be quicker again. So will Mikey.

Behind the lens

SuperHub were trackside across the weekend pulling content for Mikey's channels alongside the rest of the Team Vertu and EXCELR8 work. Reels, driver reactions, sponsor activation posts, race-by-race stills, everything pushed live as the action unfolded. Two Independent wins and a podium in changeable conditions is the sort of weekend that makes the content side of the operation pay for itself, because there's no shortage of stories to tell when the car is at the sharp end every time it goes out.

If you're a brand looking at motorsport sponsorship and wondering whether it actually delivers, this is the model. A driver doing the business on track, a team producing the content in real time, the points showing up on the championship table where prospective sponsors and partners can see them. That's how you turn a sticker on a bonnet into something measurable.

SuperHub is the marketing partner for Mikey Doble and works with brands across the BTCC paddock on motorsport sponsorship and content. To talk about putting your brand into motorsport, book a call or drop us a line.

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