Tom Chilton dominates final BTCC race at Knockhill as championship leaders struggle

Credit: Excelr8 Motorsport and Team Vertu Racing

Tom Chilton dominated the final British Touring Car Championship race at Knockhill, converting his pole position into a race victory without any serious challenge. Further down the order, championship leaders Ashley Sutton and Tom Ingram struggled to score any meaningful points.

Chilton had a strong launch and a solid opening lap to immediately put a distance between himself and second place, carrying the momentum forwards to continue on and dominate proceedings at Knockhill.

Further behind, on the opening lap, Gordon Shedden ran into a major problem, picking up a puncture seemingly coming out of Turn 3. The Scot was barely able to limp the Toyota back into the pits, and was nearly involved in a huge crash as the car careered across the circuit coming out of Turn 5.

Dan Cammish attempted to pass Lewis Selby in the first third of the race, but despite his best efforts, Selby remained ahead. The constant need to defend his position meant that the chasing pack completely lost touch with Chilton, who powered on to an eventual victory.

Eventually, Race 1 winner Adam Morgan managed to find his way past Cammish, and then immediately past Selby. Once the floodgates opened, unfortunately for Selby, it was hard to re-contain and re-defend his positions. Once Morgan flew through, then came Cammish, Dexter Patterson and Charles Rainford. Selby eventually came across the line in 13th place.

Sam Osborne was sent into the barriers at Turn 3 early on after contact with Patterson, an incident which very nearly brought out the Safety Car.

Further behind, championship leader Ashley Sutton, was being roughed up by the pair of LKQ Audi's, battling intensely over 14th position. This eventually brought the Restart Racing Hyundai's into the mix, who also fought against Sutton, banging doors and wheels multiple times.

Credit: Excelr8 Motorsport and Team Vertu Racing

Meanwhile, Tom Ingram had made some progress from the very back of the grid, but was somewhat halted by chaos in the midfield in his effort to get right back through to the front of the field. Eventually, Ingram managed to battle his way to 10th position, a solid finishing position considering he started from well outside the Top 20.

Sutton, in true champion's fashion, was able to fight back against the cars around him despite a limited number of Hybrid boost deployments available to him. The NAPA Racing Ford driver came over the line in 12th place, dropping just a couple of points to Ingram in the final race of the weekend.

With 12 races remaining in the championship, and four different meetings left in 2026, the championship momentum seems to have gone in Sutton's direction. However, as other drivers and other seasons have proved, just one poor weekend could shift the momentum and outcome of the championship once again.

The BTCC is back in two weeks' time at Donnington Park, where the title battle continues on.