BTCC Brands Hatch: Cammish handed victory after Collard penalty

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.

Photo by: JEP

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.

Photo by: JEP

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.

BTCC Brands Hatch - Race 3 results

RACE3

All Stats

 

Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	R. Collard Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	18	32'28.497		80.92		20
2	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	18	+1.026 32'29.523	1.026	80.87		17
3	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	18	+1.157 32'29.654	0.131	80.87		15
4	D. Patterson Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	18	+1.501 32'29.998	0.344	80.86		13
5	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	18	+2.528 32'31.025	1.027	80.81		11
6	A. Morgan Cataclean Plato Racing			Mercedes A35 Saloon	18	+2.794 32'31.291	0.266	80.80		10
7	J. Cook Speedworks Corolla Racing			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	18	+3.122 32'31.619	0.328	80.79		9
8	D. Lloyd Restart Racing			Hyundai i30N	18	+4.505 32'33.002	1.383	80.73		8
9	G. Shedden Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	18	+6.006 32'34.503	1.501	80.67		7
10	M. Doble LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	18	+6.159 32'34.656	0.153	80.66		6
11	C. Rainford West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	18	+7.937 32'36.434	1.778	80.59		5
12	C. Smiley Restart Racing			Hyundai i30N	18	+8.991 32'37.488	1.054	80.55		4
13	D. De Leon West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	18	+9.220 32'37.717	0.229	80.54		3
14	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	18	+10.580 32'39.077	1.360	80.48		2
15	R. Bensley Speedworks Corolla Racing			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	18	+10.764 32'39.261	0.184	80.47		1
16	L. Gilbert West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	18	+11.493 32'39.990	0.729	80.44
17	N. Hamilton Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	18	+12.727 32'41.224	1.234	80.39
dnf	A. Taylor-Smith Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	14	+4 Laps 26'25.711	4 Laps	77.33	Retirement
dnf	D. Rowbottom Cataclean Plato Racing			Mercedes A35 Saloon	11	+7 Laps 20'45.748	3 Laps	77.34	Retirement
dnf	T. Ingram Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	0				Retirement
dnf	T. Chilton Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	0				Retirement
dnf	L. Selby NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	0				Retirement
dnf	N. Halstead Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	0				Retirement
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