Series
Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship
The UK's premier touring car championship — three races a weekend, live on ITV, with a heritage stretching back to 1958.
2026 · 10 of 10About BTCC
The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is the UK's premier touring car series and one of the oldest in the world, tracing its history to 1958. Grids of closely matched touring cars contest three races per weekend at Britain's best-known circuits, with success ballast and a partial reverse grid keeping results unpredictable. Full free-to-air ITV coverage makes it the most watched domestic motorsport in the UK.
- Discipline
- Touring car
- 2026 season
- 10 rounds · season over
- All seasons
- 20 events
- Countries
- 1
BTCC guide
History
The championship began in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and took its current name for the 1987 season, making it one of the world's longest-running touring car series. Its most celebrated period came in the 1990s under Super Touring rules, when 2.0-litre machinery drew works entries from manufacturers including BMW, Ford, Nissan, Toyota, Vauxhall, Audi and Mitsubishi and pushed spectator interest to a peak. Cost-cutting BTC Touring and Super 2000 rules followed through the 2000s before the Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC) formula arrived in 2011. Three drivers share the record of four overall titles: Andy Rouse, Colin Turkington (2009, 2014, 2018, 2019) and Ashley Sutton.
The cars
Today's grid runs to NGTC rules: saloons and hatchbacks such as the BMW 3 Series, Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla and Ford Focus, all built around shared control components and powered by turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engines, with teams able to lease a common TOCA engine and everyone racing on Goodyear tyres. A Cosworth-developed push-to-pass hybrid system featured from 2022 to 2024, but from 2025 the extra power boost comes from the turbo alone, cutting around 55kg from the cars, while the whole field switched to 100% sustainable fuel — the first UK championship to do so. The formula was designed to keep build and running costs down, which is why grids stay large and closely matched.
Format & rules
A BTCC weekend packs three races into Sunday, with practice and a half-hour qualifying session on Saturday setting the grid for race one. Race one's finishing order becomes the grid for race two, and race three gets a twist: a number from six to twelve is drawn at random, and the car that finished race two in that position starts from pole with everyone who finished ahead of it lined up in reverse. Drivers who finish near the front also carry success ballast — extra weight bolted in for the next race — so nobody stays on top easily. Points go to the top 15 finishers, 20 for a win, with small bonuses for pole position, fastest lap and leading a lap.
Watching it
The series stays entirely in the UK, visiting circuits including Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Thruxton (its fastest track), Oulton Park, Croft, Snetterton, Knockhill and Silverstone across the season. Every round is a full TOCA race meeting, so a ticket covers a stacked bill of national support championships racing all weekend alongside the headline act. If you can't make it trackside, ITV4 shows Sunday's races live and free-to-air, with qualifying and support races streamed on ITVX.
Sources: Wikipedia + btcc.net