The British Touring Car Championship has made further tweaks to its regulations for the 2025 season following last week’s revelation that it is dropping hybrid.
Changes to the tyre and engine rules are being made to respectively liven up the racing action and cut costs.
BTCC organiser TOCA introduced a rule for 2024 mandating that for the second race of each event, the top 10 finishers from race one would run on the hardest available compound of Goodyear tyre remaining from their allocation.
While this led to a pair of opportunistic wins in race two for the Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla of Josh Cook, it led to some criticism that the exercise proved only that soft tyres are quicker than medium and hard.
For 2025, it will only be the top three finishers from race one who will be required to run the hardest available tyre for race two.
Newly crowned champion Jake Hill, who is hoping to stay on with the West Surrey Racing BMW team for a fourth season, told Autosport that he can see positives and negatives from the rule alteration.
“Yes and no,” he said when asked whether it would be an improvement. “I can understand why TOCA have done it, because if all of the top 10 are on a harder tyre, what you tend to get is not many changes.
“I do get it from their side and it’s an interesting way of going about it, and ultimately I think it’s going to mix up the racing a bit more.
“There will be a couple of times when some strategic play could happen and people are battling to finish fourth rather than third, but that’s not so bad if that’s in race one and you’ve still got the reversed-grid to come at the end of the day.”
Further to this, a two-year engine freeze will be introduced as a cost-saving measure from 1 April 2025, with no further developments allowed to homologated powerplants until the end of the 2026 season.
A new safety car procedure will demand that, once the safety car lights are turned off, each car must stay within two lengths of the competitor in front, and the leader must maintain their speed until passing a new ‘restart point’ positioned between the final corner and the start-finish line, with no overlapping allowed until passing the green flag.
The Jack Sears Trophy, which in 2024 featured just six cars, has also been revised to allow drivers who have scored just one outright BTCC podium alongside those who have claimed none.
And a change to the formation of the grid for race one means that those failing to progress from Q1 will line up in alternate order based on positions in their group rather than on combined overall times.
TOCA’s latest round-up of rule changes follows the news that 100% sustainable fuel has been mandated for 2025.
“Of course, the introduction of 100% sustainable fuel has been the headlining change for the 2025 BTCC season, but we always look at every aspect of our championship each year to see what can be improved,” said series boss Alan Gow.
“I’m sure that these tweaks will all have a positive effect and will further add to the great racing that is the hallmark of the BTCC.”
Hill also gave the thumbs-up to the introduction of sustainable fuel – which was featured at the Goodwood Revival for the first time in 2024, when Hill and 2022 BTCC champion Tom Ingram starred with their battle for the prestigious RAC TT Celebration race – and the removal of hybrid.
“To have a lighter car is what we all want as drivers,” he added. “Hybrid is a box ticked for the BTCC but we all think that sustainable fuel is the future.
“We’ve seen it in historic motorsport, and it’s the right time for it to be introduced to modern motorsport.”
