East Anglia may be renowned for its flat topography, but last weekend a small area of Norfolk became notable for an almost insurmountable Hill. The Laser Tools-emblazoned BMW 330e M Sport of Jake Hill was invincible through qualifying and the first two races at Snetterton, bringing the West Surrey Racing squad’s diminutive Kentishman right back into the hunt for the British Touring Car Championship crown after a miserable weekend on home soil at Brands Hatch. He drove absolutely brilliantly in a car he described as “quite honestly, perfect all weekend”.
And for all its flat terrain, Snetterton also featured a weekend of ups and downs for the three other ‘big guns’ of the BTCC – Hill’s title rivals Ash Sutton, Tom Ingram and Colin Turkington. Much of that was down to a combination of the miserable British climate, which unleashed all it had throughout the weekend, and the BTCC’s sporting regulations. The compulsion for this event to run all three of Goodyear’s slick tyre options, and the new-for-2024 regulation whereby the top 10 in race one all have to run the hardest rubber left from their allocation for race two, provided perhaps one gimmick too many amid the rain.
WSR attempted to pull a fast one for race two by sending the BMWs of Hill and team newcomer Bobby Thompson to the front row of the decidedly slippery grid on the hard slick, when almost everyone else was on grooved wet-weather tyres. It was a ‘look, we’ve used the hard tyre and got it out of the way’ ploy, and the mechanics predictably got them off the cars and put the wets on in plenty of time for the formation lap. Down the pitlane there was fuming at Speedworks Motorsport, which had taken its pain in race one by running Rob Huff’s Toyota Gazoo Racing GB Corolla on the mediums, and the LKQ cars of Josh Cook and Aiden Moffat on hards, when
