BTCC Brands Hatch: Cammish handed victory after Collard penalty
by Marcus Simmons · AutosportCollard took the chequered flag in a controversial final race of the season but was later penalised, while team-mate Ingram has been sent to hospital
Dan Cammish inherited victory in a disrupted final British Touring Car Championship race of the season at Brands Hatch after on-the-road winner Ricky Collard was given a post-race penalty.
The Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback driver, who returned to the cockpit for Brands after being forced to stand down last time out at Silverstone, crossed the line first, but was found to have breached the safety-car restart procedure.
The loss compounded the gloom in the Excelr8 garage, with outgoing champion Tom Ingram – winner of the day’s first two races – taken to a hospital for a CT scan following a hefty crash that also involved team-mate Tom Chilton, who was starting the final BTCC race of his lengthy career.
The accident happened when the Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium of Sam Osborne, who was also taking part in his final BTCC race, got pincered between the two Hyundais on the approach to Paddock. Osborne ricocheted off Ingram into Chilton, but somehow emerged intact in the middle of the pack. Ingram was sent into the barriers and Chilton into the gravel, the Surrey veteran bowing theatrically to the crowd as he emerged from his Hyundai.
Nick Halstead also went off in his Power Maxed Racing Audi while, further down the hill, a lose from Lewis Selby meant his Alliance Ford was collected by Dan Rowbottom, who at least managed to extract his CPRL Mercedes from the gravel to continue.
Ash Sutton had sustained some damage in a collision with the sister NAPA Ford of Dan Cammish on the opening lap, but was fourth by the time the safety car was called. Following the restart, he soon passed Cammish and then the PMR Audi A3 Saloon of reversed-grid polesitter Dexter Patterson to moved up to second place.
At half-distance, Sutton got a run on race leader Collard out of Hawthorns bend. The 2026 champion moved to the inside of the Hyundai, but Collard kept squeezing over until he forced the Ford onto the grass.
Sutton mowed through a KwikFit board, and briefly emerged in the lead at the Westfield apex, but was on course for the gravel on the outside of the corner. This dropped him to ninth.
Collard then came under attack from another Alliance Ford driver in the form of Cammish, but the Hampshireman had two more laps of TOCA Turbo Boost, which meant it was going to be tough for Cammish to make the move.
The safety car appeared for the second time when Rowbottom pulled off at the top of Paddock with his brakes on fire, leaving time for four more laps of racing.
It was for this restart that Collard was given his penalty, with some close calls as drivers were forced to check up to avoid each other.
Clerk of the course Ian Watson reported: “During the process of restarting the race after the second safety car period the driver of car 11 [Collard] did not follow the restart procedure by a) not maintaining approximately the same speed as the safety car once the lights went out, b) accelerating prior to reaching the first ‘Go’ board and c) not accelerating smoothly back to racing speed. This penalty is consistent with previous breaches of this article of the regulations.”
Meanwhile, Sutton was immediately on the move, taking the outside line at Paddock and Druids to vault from seventh to fourth. He was past Patterson next time around, and as the final lap started he went high into Paddock to get the cutback on Cammish up to Druids.
But by now Sutton was out of TTB, and Cammish used his last boost to repass on the straight after Surtees, so it was the Yorkshireman who ended up second to Collard, 1.026 seconds adrift, and eventually claimed the race win. The five-second addition to Collard’s time dropped him to eighth.
Patterson was promoted to third, ahead of PMR Audi team-mate Aiden Moffat. Behind them, Adam Morgan worked his CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon past Josh Cook’s Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport for fifth with two laps remaining.
The top 10 on the road was completed by Dan Lloyd (Restart Racing Hyundai, promoted to seventh), Gordon Shedden (Speedworks Toyota) and Mikey Doble (PMR Audi).
They were all boosted up the order when, following the second restart, the ongoing Brands grudge match between Charles Rainford and Aron Taylor-Smith reached its conclusion when the West Surrey Racing BMW of Rainford turned Taylor-Smith’s Speedworks Toyota into the barrier at Westfield.
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