BTCC stalwart Chilton announces retirement

British Touring Car Championship stalwart Tom Chilton has announced he is retiring after this weekend’s season finale at Brands Hatch.

It brings an end to a 24-year career in Britain's premier motorsport series – interrupted only by a five-year spell in which he competed solely in the World Touring Car Championship – that yielded 19 wins and 73 podiums.

“So this is it. I am going into retirement,” an emotional Chilton said in a video posted on Instagram. “It is very sad because I've had a wonderful, wonderful career … [I've] had a great career in the British touring cars. Loved it to pieces, been it since I was 17 years old, back in 2002, and it all started here at Brands Hatch GP. I didn't know the circuit at all, I ran around it the night before to learn it. I wasn't even driving on the road, didn't have a road car license, and managed to finish third in my first ever race, on the podium with the legend and multiple champion Matt Neal and Dan Eaves.”

Chilton, brother of former Formula 1 and IndyCar driver Max Chilton, made his debut in 2002 as a fresh-faced teenager driving a Vauxhall Astra Coupe for Barwell Motorsport and instantly made an impression.

After finishing third in his debut race, he added another podium the following season before becoming the series’ youngest-ever race winner in his third campaign at 19 years and 55 days old – a record that still stands today – driving a Honda Civic Type-R for Arena Motorsport's Team Honda.

It was the first of two wins for him that year, and he added another four in 2005, a year in which he also had outings in the Le Mans Series and American Le Mans Series.

The works Vauxhall team came calling in 2006 but the expected results didn't follow and for 2008 he moved to Team Dynamics to get back behind the wheel of a Honda once again with Neal – son of Team Dynamics founder Steve Neal – moving in the opposite direction. Chilton managed one win for Team Dynamics, at Brands Hatch, before he returned to Arena Motorsport, which by now was running Ford Focus STs.

In his second season of his second stint with the team, Arena Motorsport ran fast but controversial LPG-powered engines which helped him to three wins and fifth in the championship, equalling his previous best finish from 2005.

After one more season, Arena and Chilton moved onto the world stage. Chilton remained in the WTCC for six seasons – which included later stints with RML, ROAL Motorsport, and Sebastien Loeb Racing – where he won seven times and took a best championship finish of third in 2017.

That same year he also made a return to the BTCC with Power Maxed Racing, dovetailing the two campaigns but with WTCC ending after that season, he focused fully on domestic competition for 2018, moving to Motorbase.

That proved to be his most successful season in terms of finishing position, netting third overall with one race win. He remained with the Kent outfit for another season before a year apiece with BTC Racing and Cicely Motorsport, before he moved to EXCELR8 Motorsport in 2022, where he has remained ever since.

He ended a three-season winless streak with victory in the second round of 2023 at Donington Park, and has gone on to win in each of the four most recent seasons, his latest victory coming at Knockhill in August.

Chilton's latest BTCC win came at Knockhill in August, but he's hoping to cap off his career with one more victory at Brands Hatch. BTCC photo

“I'm now here at Brands Hatch GP for the last round of 2026 and the last one in my career,” he said. “I'm hoping I can end with another big trophy, and it's going to be very sad.

“I've had such a great, great time in the British Touring Car Championship with over 560 races – if you count the quali races, which I do, it will be 572 by the end of this weekend, which is a lot of race starts.

“Hopefully I do get a good start and I can get a nice trophy because I love this track. It's my local race track.

“It's going to be emotional saying goodbye to all my fans as well. I've got all my personal friends coming on the Saturday, tomorrow, to come and watch me, and then I've got all my family coming on Sunday. So for me, lots of personal reasons, it's going to be a really big deal, and for my four children, I hope I can get on the podium.

“Thank you for all the support, loved every second, and yeah, over and out. Thank you.”

This weekend, Ricky Collard is returning to the BTCC after missing the last event, owing to a funding shortfall.

Collard was benched by the EXCELR8-run Team VERTU in favor of Osamu Kawashima for the final two race weekends of the season, but after a lackluster performance from the Japanese driver at Silverstone, Collard will be back behind the wheel for this weekend's trio of races on Brands Hatch's GP circuit.

Watch all three of Sunday's championship rounds, including the final race of the 30-round season, live on RACER Network and RACER+.