The 2026 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship began in anticipation and excitement at the marvellous 1.98 miles Donington Park National Circuit.
The new campaign sees a new addition to the schedule, with a 13-lap Qualifying Race To Pole taking place on Saturday after the usual two-group Qualifying Session. The Race To Pole session sets the grid for Sunday’s first of three BTCC races. The winner of the Race To Pole is awarded ten points, and points are also allocated down to fifteenth place.
In addition to the extra race on Saturday, the powers that be have also extended the boost allocation to ten laps for this season, which is also available for that Race To Pole. Obviously the more successful a driver is in the championship, the less boost he’ll have to play with on the grid.
Once again Sam Osborne will be racing the number 77 Ford with Napa Racing UK. He’ll be alongside Ash Sutton, Dan Cammish, and last season’s Mini Challenge UK driver Lewis Selby. However, instead of racing the Ford Focus ST hatchback, the quartet are racing the beautiful Ford Focus Titanium (with a boot).
The number 77 Ford is also still eligible to challenge for the Jack Sears Trophy again this term because, Sam’s maiden BTCC win at Silverstone last season is his only podium in the series to date. So Sam is determined to achieve success in the trophy this season.
Saturday’s Qualifying Session saw Sam placed in Group One. He had two fast laps scrapped due to track limits infringements, as he started to get used to his new racer. Despite the setbacks, he managed to claim tenth spot in his group.
His best time of 1:08.82 was good enough for 19th position for the start of the Race To Pole, where he started alongside the Team Vertu Hyundia i30N of Nic Hamilton.
RACE TO POLE (13 Laps)
The Race To Pole saw Sam on the inside of the tenth row and booted up with the medium tyre compound. He got a good launch to get by both Ricky Collard (Team Vertu Hyundia i30N) and James Dorlin (Restart Racing Hyundia i30N), before the latter returned the favour further around the lap.
Sam was promoted to sixteenth at the start of the second tour, after Louis Selby (Napa Racing UK Ford Focus Titanium) and Chris Smiley (Restart Racing Hyundia i30N) dropped down the field. Another place was gained when teammate Sutton put a rear wheel on the grass and spun across the track and out of the race, before Collard got his Hyundia i30N back past Sam before the end of what was an eventful opening two laps.
Chris Smiley got back past Sam on the sixth lap, before the number 77 Ford retook the position on the next lap and also got past the Team Vertu Hyundia i30N of Collard as well. James Dorlin then went backwards to allow Sam to fight for 14th place within a five-car battle all separated by just six tenths of a second!
However, Collard returned the favour once again later in the lap, leaving Sam to battle with both Smiley and Dorlin into the tenth tour, as the trio pulled away from Selby’s Ford and Nic Hamilton’s Team Vertu Hyundia i30N.
Yet circumstances went against Sam and his pursuit of 14th, as he went on to finish in 18th place with a bit of damage to the right-front of his Ford Focus Titanium.
RACE 1 (21 Laps)
The opening proper race of the weekend saw the entire grid starting on equal amounts of ten laps worth of boost available. Sam started Race One in 18th place, alongside the WSR BMW 330i M Sport of Daryl De Leon and in front of Nic Hamilton’s Team Vertu Hyundia i30N. Sam began on the medium tyre compound and got away well as the lights went out. However, he found himself down a spot in nineteenth by the time he reached the Craner Curves, after teammate Ash Sutton (who’d started at the back of the grid) got by.
Sam edged ahead of Lewis Selby between McLeans and Coppice on the second lap, as he set after James Dorlin and Chris Smiley. He got past the former’s Restart Racing Hyundia i30N on the third lap, and had a watching brief as De Leon and Collard traded panel paint in the traditional BTCC way! Collard’s Team Vertu Hyundia i30N then dropped behind Sam’s Ford Focus Titanium on the run down the Dunlop Straight, as the number 77 looked to climb up the grid.
Sam was enjoying a real ding-dong with Smiley, before being promoted to 15th after Josh Cook lost his Speedworks Corolla Racing Toyota Corolla GR Sport at the Fogarty Esses chicane to beach himself in the gravel and prompt a Safety Car intervention at the end of the seventh lap.
Racing resumed on the 12th (of a now 21-lap race), whereby Dorlin got the jump on Sam at the restart. Sam returned to the points-paying positions on the following lap, after Chris Smiley ran out of road on the exit of Coppice.
That was followed by an excellent overtake up the inside of Dorlin’s Restart Racing Hyundia i30N on the run through Hollywood and the Craner Curves (lap 14), before passing De Leon’s WSR BMW 330i M Sport at Redgate on lap sixteen to set about chasing after the Team Vertu Hyundia i30N of Tom Chilton in 12th place.
However, Sam received a final warning for track limit infringements from the stewards soon afterwards, before De Leon got back past on the run down the Dunlop Straight on the 19th lap.
James Dorlin got back past the number 77 Ford to leave Sam to take the chequered flag in 15th place. However, he was promoted to 14th and two Drivers Championship points after Tom Ingram’s Team Vertu Hyundia i30N was disqualified at the end of the race.
RACE 2 (21 Laps)
Race Two saw Sam starting in fourteenth, with ten laps worth of boost available, and the medium tyre compound once again.
Unlike the first race, he bogged down at the start to drop four places before the Safety Car was deployed after Nic Hamilton beached his Team Vertu Hyundia i30N in the gravel trap.
Eighteenth soon became 17th after Dan Rowbottom’s Cataclean Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon dropped out, before racing resumed on lap four (of now 21 laps).
Having been all over the bumper of Tom Chilton’s Team Vertu Hyundia i30N since the restart, Sam finally got by on lap six and then passed James Dorlin (Restart Racing Hyundia i30N) on the next lap to chase after teammate Lewis Selby.
He soon caught the number 15 Ford Focus Titanium and, after a terrific battle, got by and up into fourteenth place through the Craner Curves/Old Hairpin complex on lap ten. He then caught up with Chris Smiley’s Restart Racing Hyundia i30N on lap eleven, but came off second-best while trying to squeeze past to be eventually re-passed by Selby on the run down the Dunlop Straight.
Another brilliant battle between the two Napa Racing UK Fords ensued, which ended with Chilton taking advantage to push Sam back down to sixteenth place on the twelfth lap.
The closing stages of the race saw a jolly old ding-dong between Sam and James Dorlin take place, with Sam pipping the Restart Racing Hyundia i30N to the chequered flag to finish in 16th place and right behind teammate Selby.
RACE 3 (18 Laps)
The third and final race of the weekend would run straight through with no Safety Car interruptions. Sam started where he’d finished earlier, in 16th place and with the full quota of ten laps worth of boost available. On this occasion though, he was on the soft tyre compound.
He made a good start as the lights went out to get by teammate Lewis Selby, before being dropped down to seventeenth by the end of the second lap as Tom Ingram (Team Vertu Hyundia i30N), James Dorlin (Restart Racing Hyundia i30N), and Dan Rowbottom (Cataclean Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon) all got by.
But Sam got back by Dorlin on the next lap, before overtaking Rowbottom on the run down the Dunlop Straight to start lap four in the points. Fifteenth soon became 13th after Daryl De Leon’s WSR BMW 330i M Sport was tapped into a skid and collected by the Team Vertu Hyundia i30N of Tom Chilton, with both drivers falling down the field.
Sam overtook the LQK Euro Car Parts With Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon of Mikey Doble on lap five, before catching and passing the Speedworks Corolla Racing Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Josh Cook on the Dunlop Straight to begin the 8th lap in eleventh place.
He then set on after the two Laser Tools Racing With MB Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sports of Gordon Shedden and Aron Taylor-Smith, getting by the former during the run through the Old Hairpin and McLeans section to find himself in the top ten by the ninth lap.
However, the number 77 Ford Focus Titanium was squeezed onto the grass by Taylor-Smith on the run down the Wheatcroft Straight, which forced Sam to back out of his attack. He did finally get by the Toyota a couple of corners later and a few good and steady laps saw Sam close to within touching distance of Adam Morgan’s Cataclean Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon by lap sixteen.
But, having been boxed in by the Mercedes, Sam was soon passed by Chris Smiley’s Restart Racing Hyundia i30N at the exit of Coppice, before running to the chequered flag on the bumper of Morgan to finish in tenth place. That soon became ninth after teammate Dan Cammish was hit with a penalty at the end.
After three hard-fought races, Sam opened his 2026 campaign with nine Drivers Championship points and 47 Jack Sears Trophy points… a solid start for the number 77 Ford Focus Titanium.
By Chris Palmer
