Jake Hill has shared his delight after he was crowned British Touring Car Champion for the first time in his career at Brands Hatch last weekend (October 5/6).

On what proved to be a dramatic final day of the season on the Grand Prix layout of the Kent venue, the Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport driver produced a champions drive in the finale to edge out Tom Ingram and lift the coveted prize.

Entering the weekend tied on points with Ingram in the standings, the BMW 330e M Sport racer charged to a hard-fought victory in race one before then shadowing Ingram in second place in the penultimate contest.

Those results set up a tantalising title showdown which saw Hill leading by a solitary point. In what was simply a winner-takes-all situation, Hill held his nerve in wet conditions to power past Ingram in the early stages and from there he didn’t look back as he cruised to the crown.

“It’s just a massive, overwhelming feeling of emotions,” said Hill. “This is the first championship I have ever won and we’ve gone and made sure it is the British Touring Car Championship – I can’t quite comprehend it all at the moment.

“That last race was all about just staying calm because Tom was initially very strong and had the initiative. After a few laps though I could see he didn’t have the pace and then it was about pick my moment. It swung massively in my favour suddenly and thankfully it went our way.

“This means so much though as I thought my career was done in 2018, when I pulled out halfway through, and then Shaun Hollamby saved the day. A mixture of Shaun and me being team-mates with Mark Blundell started this journey again.

“I owe the latter part of my career to Shaun for taking a risk on me and giving me a cheap enough drive that we could somehow get the money together to do it, which we did. My Dad also just never, ever gave up and now we’re BTCC champions!”