TCR UK Touring Car Championship – Rounds 12, 13 & 14
Silverstone National – 17th & 18th August 2024
In a dramatic weekend of TCR UK Touring Car Championship action at Silverstone, Carl Boardley powered himself to the top of the standings ahead of the season run-in. The reigning champion took two wins and another podium, while Brad Hutchison was the weekend’s other winner.
Qualifying
It was erstwhile championship leader Adam Shepherd who set the pace around the 1.64-mile National circuit at the British Grand Prix venue. The Area Motorsport with Shepherd Motors driver put his CUPRA Leon Competicion on pole position by just 0.02 seconds from the similar car of CBM with Hart GT driver Carl Boardley.
Split times suggested Shepherd had another 0.14s in hand if he’d strung together his best splits, despite a theoretical 30kg compensation weight advantage being negated by a fuel surge problem meaning he was having to carry extra fuel.
Shepherd’s second best time was only marginally slower, leaving his pole margin for the weekend’s third race, where Boardley would again join him on the front row, at more than a quarter of a second.
Brad Hutchison (Bond It with MPH Racing) and Shepherd’s Area Motorsport team-mate Steve Laidlaw ensured it was a CUPRA lockout of the top four places in qualifying. Laidlaw, on only his second outing in the ex-Luke Sargeant car, was just 0.025s slower than Hutchison – albeit benefiting from being 30kg lighter.
Croft double winner Callum Newsham (JH Racing) was less than a tenth further back, hampered by straightline speed aboard his ballast-laden Hyundai i30 N. Sargeant was sixth fastest on his return to the series, now piloting an Audi RS3 LMS.
The top eight was completed by Hyundai duo Darron Lewis (DLR with JH Racing) and Sam Laidlaw (Capture Motorsport).
Ninth fastest among the biggest entry of the season so far was another returnee, Matthew Wilson in his very smarty turned out CUPRA Leon, run as ever by JW Bird Motorsport. Wilson bettered Will Powell (Go-Fix Honda by Sport77 Honda Civic Type R FK7) by just 0.012s.
Setting the pace in the Gen 1 Cup, for older-spec cars, was Rick Kerry’s CUPRA TCR run by EDF Motorsport, 0.1s clear of Will Beech (Capture Motorsport Volkswagen Golf GTI). Jeff Alden, switching to an Audi RS3 LMS TCR but still run by Matrix Motorsport with DW Racing, was next ahead of Cedric Bloch.
The Frenchman, TCR UK’s first paraplegic racer, was an exciting addition to the entry having finally completed the homologation process for the hand controls aboard his Audi run by Simon Green Motorsport with Sport77.
SILVERSTONE NATIONAL QUALIFYING RESULT
Round 12 – Race Report
Saturday afternoon’s first race began with a bang – quite literally – as title rivals Boardley and Shepherd clashed at the first corner. After a long hold on the lights, Boardley made the better start on the inside line and made his move as they entered the fast right-hander at Copse.
The pair made contact and Shepherd’s car was spat across to the infield as Boardley escaped.
While Shepherd quickly gathered up his rotating CUPRA, he appeared to catch out Powell as he rejoined on the run to Maggotts, with the Honda jinking left and spinning into the gravel. The upshot was an early safety car, with Boardley leading from a fast-starting Steve Laidlaw, Hutchison and Newsham.
Worse was to come for Shepherd, who had sustained a right-rear puncture in the first-corner incident and had to limp back to the pits on three wheels for a replacement before rejoining at the back of the field.
Boardley’s car had also sustained damage to its left-front, hampering him for the rest of the race, but he managed to stay out front until another caution was required when Alden went off at Copse at around half-distance.
Behind the leader, Laidlaw had his hands full defending from Hutchison. When the pair made contact at Becketts, it allowed Newsham to snatch third and he then dived inside Laidlaw for second at Brooklands a lap later, setting the fastest lap in the process.
Hutchison managed to complete his own move on Laidlaw before the safety car period.
Racing resumed with time for three more laps. Boardley made a good restart but Newsham then chipped back into his advantage and, with a good run through Becketts on the final lap, might have fancied his chances under braking into Brooklands. But the i30’s straightline deficit meant Newsham could not stay close enough, and Boardley was able to cross the line with 0.3s in hand.
Third position was Hutchison’s fourth consecutive podium, while Laidlaw edged ever closer to his own first rostrum placing in fourth – which also earned Goodyear Diamond Award honours for drivers aged 40 and above. Lewis and Wilson completed the top six, while Shepherd recovered to seventh.
But there was more drama to come. Boardley was thrown out of the result and handed four licence points for his part in the first-corner incident. Advantage Shepherd – or so it looked.
First Shepherd (his vision obscured by a windscreen washer leak into the cabin) was penalised 15s for passing Bloch before the timing line at a restart; that meant he dropped to 13th and wouldn’t benefit from the top-10 reversal for Round 13’s grid.
Then Boardley successfully appealed the severity of his own penalty (but not his liability for the incident) and was reinstated as the winner.
Shepherd’s penalty meant Sargeant inherited seventh, ahead of Civic Cup graduate Owen Hillman on debut in Pro Alloys Racing’s Lynk & Co 03. Sam Laidlaw and Brad Thurston (Go-Fix Honda by Sport77 Civic) completed the top 10 and earned themselves front-row starts for the following day’s first race.
Kerry and Beech continued their season-long duel for Gen 1 Cup honours, with Kerry triumphing by just 0.3s, ahead of Bloch in third.
SILVERSTONE NATIONAL ROUND TWELVE RESULT
Round 13 – Race Report
Ahead of Sunday afternoon’s race, a large crowd enjoyed a busy gridwalk in Silverstone’s summer sunshine. And with two of the championship’s fastest drivers set to start from the rear of the field – Boardley’s penalty had been converted to a 10-place grid drop, on top of the grid reversal – it contributed to an electric atmosphere ahead of the race.
That only heightened when Shepherd appeared to have a problem on the dummy grid and was last away, meaning he would have to start from the very back, right behind Boardley. Shepherd’s gearbox compressor had failed and started to cause a meltdown of the surrounding components.
That contributed to some confusion when the cars lined up for the start, which had to be abandoned when one of Beech’s brakes locked on. As the VW was removed, Shepherd’s car was pushed to the pits where his crew set frantically to work.
When the race finally did get under way it lasted only three laps before being red-flagged. On cold tyres, polesitter Thurston suffered a big slide at Becketts and had a swarm of cars in his mirrors as they charged down the Wellington Straight for the first time.
Impressing in the Lynk & Co, Hillman managed to get inside Thurston to take the lead through the long right-hander at Luffield.
Hutchison then managed to take advantage of the squabbling in front to pass three cars in one go into Copse and run second before demoting Hillman from the lead, with Newsham following into third.
Thurston’s next assailant was Steve Laidlaw, who got his challenge at Becketts all wrong and punted the Honda into the gravel. That brought out a safety car and, as the pack concertinaed Thurston’s team-mate Powell made contact with the slowing Lewis, which led to the Honda coming to a halt after a big crash at Woodcote.
The race was stopped and the Sport77 boss was thankfully able to quickly extract himself from his car that had been left on its side.
Meantime, Boardley had also been thumped into a lurid slide at Brooklands, sustaining wheel damage which scrutineers deemed necessary for him to pit and replace under the red-flag conditions.
Once the wreckage was cleared, a shortened race began with two laps behind the safety car, to get tyres back up to temperature. Boardley, Sargeant, Lewis (who had both also pitted) and Shepherd’s hastily patched-up car would start from the pitlane.
The race had now become a contest between Hutchison and Newsham, who cleared Hillman for second exiting Copse once the cars were released. The JH Racing driver put the pressure on his MPHR counterpart as much as he could but Hutchison held firm to record a second career TCR UK victory and prove that he remains a title contender.
Behind the lead pair, Hillman unfortunately spun out of third at Luffield and would finish down in 10th place. Laidlaw inherited third position which he would cling on to until the flag, only to be hit with a 5s track-limits penalty.
Matters only got worse for the Area Motorsport man when he was disqualified from the result for his incident with Thurston.
It meant that, incredibly, Boardley claimed a podium finish from his pitlane start. The champion had worked his way through the field and set fastest lap before getting inside Wilson for fourth – which became third – at Becketts in the closing stages.
Lewis was fifth, and winner of the Goodyear Diamond Award, and Sargeant sixth ahead of series promoter Stewart Lines, who confirmed pre-meeting that he would complete the season in the ex-Bruce Winfield Hyundai i30 N, now run by Capture Motorsport.
Shepherd could only drag his wounded car to eighth, and another big points loss to his three championship rivals, ahead of Gen 1 Cup winner Kerry and Hillman.
SILVERSTONE NATIONAL ROUND THIRTEEN RESULT
Round 14 – Race Report
After all the drama of the weekend so far, the finale’s grid being decided by second-fastest qualifying times meant a clean slate and a chance to start afresh. The four title contenders filled the front two rows of the grid which was depleted by three cars, missing both Hondas as well as Bloch’s Audi, as his race-two ending boost problem proved elusive.
Boardley again got a better start than polesitter Shepherd and jumped into the lead with his rival slotting in behind. But while there was no repeat of their earlier contact, this time Hutchison and Newsham came together.
The latter’s race ended within yards of the start and Hutchison was left manhandling a wounded car at the back of the field.
Both Boardley and Shepherd felt they had a point to prove, and Shepherd wasted no time in making his move at Luffield – where Boardley gave him plenty of space – at the end of the opening lap. Boardley then kept up the pressure as the pair opened a gap to third-placed Laidlaw.
But any thoughts of a tantalising battle to the finish were dashed when Shepherd began to slow mid-race. His CUPRA’s splitter had broken and began to flap in the airflow.
What was initially only a slightly reduced pace quickly got worse and worse as the forces involved began ripping the front of his car apart. Shepherd shed an inner wheelarch on the Wellington Straight, then toured into the pits, his title hopes hanging by a thread.
With the bit between his teeth, Boardley charged on at unabated pace and eventually took the flag more than 10s clear for his fourth win of the season – as many as he managed in last year’s title-winning campaign. He didn’t even let a slow puncture hamper him over the last few laps.
Laidlaw continued to hold second but was caught and passed by Lewis in the closing stages. Both Goodyear Diamond Award runners secured their best-ever results in the process.
Despite a crabbing car, Hutchison recovered to claim a useful points haul in fourth (albeit tempered by penalty points earned for his part in the opening-lap incident), ahead of Sargeant and Wilson.
Track-limits penalties did not affect Lines’s seventh position, ahead of Hillman in eighth. In ninth overall, Beech finally got the better of Kerry for Gen 1 Cup honours, while Shepherd was classified 11th having returned to the fray with his car taped together.
SILVERSTONE NATIONAL ROUND FOURTEEN RESULT
After a dramatic weekend, Boardley now holds a 16-point lead in the title chase over Newsham, with Hutchison a further 35 points adrift and Shepherd some 66 points off the pace. Six races across two weekends remain, with the high-speed sweeps of Thruxton next on the schedule, on 21-22 September.
Lewis’s lead in the Goodyear Diamond Award standings now stands at more than 100 points, while Kerry has eked out a nine-point advantage over Beech in the Gen 1 Cup standings.
Driver quotes
Rounds 12 & 14 winner, Carl Boardley
“I decided it was about time the real Carl Boardley came out and had a play. I was right pumped for it and I thought: ‘I’m not even letting off until the end’.
“Onto Thruxton. I’d like to think I know what I’m doing there.”
Round 13 winner, Brad Hutchison
“You look at what a win does in the championship and it makes it up massively. Hopefully this gets us back on track. Happy days. We’ll just keep scoring points.”
Next time – Thruxton!
The 2024 TCR UK Touring Car Championship is back in action in less than 4 weeks time, on Saturday 21st September and Sunday 22nd September where rounds 15, 16 & 17 will take place at Thruxton in Hampshire.
This is the first time that TCR UK will race at the Hampshire venue, and its also the last weekend in the season where dropped scores will count.
At the end of Sunday 22nd September when the racing is all done, all scores will be locked in, ahead of the Silverstone Finale in October.
You can purchase tickets for the next event of the 2024 season, at Thruxton, from their website: https://thruxtonracing.co.uk/racing/brscc
To find out more about the TCR UK Touring Car Championship visit https://www.tcr-uk.co.uk/ for more information and how to get involved.
To learn more about the 2024 TCR UK Touring Car Championship Calendar events, visit https://www.tcr-uk.co.uk/2024-calendar/ for more information.
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