Heat, Interruptions, Confidence — Chilton’s Brands Hatch Verdict

The 2026 BTCC season didn’t just arrive quietly.

It started at Brands Hatch Circuit with a packed media day, capped at 8,000 fans — and plenty more who would have come if they could. Under clear skies and unusually hot conditions for the time of year, it felt less like a test and more like the opening chapter of the season itself.

For Tom Chilton, Commercial Director at Birch, it also carried a slightly different significance.

Brands Hatch sits around 45 minutes from Birch, making it effectively a home event — and a natural place to take stock ahead of his second season with the business and with the Birch name now firmly established on the car.

“There’s always a good feeling at this point in the year,” Chilton said at the end of the day. “You’ve done the work over the winter, you’ve made your changes, and now you’re getting ready to see where you really are.”

‍A Day That Didn’t Show the Full Picture

On the face of it, Brands Hatch didn’t deliver a clean read.

Chilton’s running was interrupted at key moments — a puncture during one outing, an alternator issue on another, and then a red flag at exactly the wrong time, just as he was preparing for a final run on fresh tyres.

That last run mattered.

In conditions like these, with track temperatures high and grip evolving throughout the day, the final set of tyres is where you expect to see the true pace of the car.

“I went out to do a proper new-tyre run at the end,” Chilton explained, “and then someone went off in the gravel at Paddock Hill. Red flag. That was that.”

The feeling within the team was that there was more to come.

A cleaner run, on fresh tyres, would likely have put the car much closer to the front of the timesheets.

But that’s testing.

The stopwatch doesn’t always reflect the work that’s actually been done.

“I haven’t really shown anything time-wise,” Chilton said. “But I’ve had a lot of fun, and I do feel like we’re ready.”

Progress Built Over the Winter

That confidence comes from the work that sits behind theday.

Testing at Croft and Snetterton gave the team a cleardirection, and the changes made to the Hyundai package — both inside andoutside the car — have been about refinement rather than reinvention.

“We’ve made a lot of changes,” Chilton said. “Andeverything we’ve done so far has been positive.”

That’s the key at this stage.

Not chasing a single headline lap, but understanding how the car behaves across different conditions — particularly in extremes like those seen at Brands Hatch.

Hot weather forces teams into different setup compromises. Tyre degradation becomes more of a factor. Balance shifts over a run.

Those are useful problems to solve before the season starts.

Year Two with Birch

What makes 2026 different for Chilton is what sits alongside the racing.

This is now his second season as part of Birch, with the brand firmly established on the car and the business itself expanding rapidly.

“There’s a lot going on with Birch at the moment,”he said. “We’re growing, we’re moving into a bigger site, and we’re broadening what we do. That’s why the name has evolved to Birch Automotive — it reflects the fact we’re not just about storage.”

That alignment matters.

Because it positions Birch within the paddock assomething more than a sponsor — a business that operates at the same level of precision and professionalism that the championship demands.

A Broader, Stronger Line-Up

 The team dynamic has also shifted.

Nicolas Hamilton joins the programme, adding depth and a different perspective within the garage. Alongside him, Ricky Collard returns to touring cars as a British GT champion, bringing recent success and strong racecraft.

Combined with Tom Ingram and Chilton, it creates aline-up with real range.

Different inputs, different experiences, and a wider base of feedback — all of which feeds into how the car develops over a season.

Looking Ahead to Donington

With Brands Hatch complete, the focus shifts quickly to Donington Park.

It’s the same opening venue as last year — and one where the team delivered.

Chilton is quietly confident.

“I think we’ll be strong in qualifying,” he said. “Top four, something like that…”

But BTCC rarely follows a predictable script.

The structure of the weekend — tyre usage, success ballast, reverse grids — means that positions will move around constantly.

“You can be right at the front in one race, then back in the pack the next,” Chilton said. “Then you’ve got to come through again.”

That’s what defines the championship.

Not a single result, but the ability to manage three races across a weekend — and repeat that over a full season.

Seeing the Season Clearly

At Birch, that kind of thinking is familiar.

Motorsport is followed closely across the business — notj ust BTCC, but Formula 1, MotoGP and endurance racing — and that perspective shapes how performance is understood more broadly.

“There’s a lot of crossover in mindset,” Chilton said. “It’s about consistency, understanding what you’re working with, and getting the most out of it every time.”

Ready to go go go!

Brands Hatch didn’t produce the headline lap the team might have expected.

Circumstances took that away.

But what it did confirm was direction.

The car has moved forward. The understanding is there.The team is in a position to start the season strongly.

Now, it becomes about execution.

For Chilton, and for Birch, that’s what year two is about.

Not proving the concept.

Building on it.