The contrast could not have been greater. While Deagen Fairclough romped to British Formula 4 glory by a staggering 222.5 points after unprecedented levels of domination, Seb Hopkins sealed the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB title by just a solitary point.
Such contrasts were evident throughout the British Touring Car Championship's support bill this year as some series featured thrilling title battles that went down to the wire, while in others it was a case of watching a master at work.
We begin our reflections on an entertaining 2024 campaign with the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, which boasted four drivers separated by four points at the top of the standings heading into the deciding event.
Porsche Carrera Cup GB
The storming drive that clinched George Gamble the Porsche Carrera Cup GB title was certainly a memorable one. He was simply unstoppable in tricky wet conditions for the Brands Hatch finale as he passed a succession of rivals to charge towards a title he eventually won quite comfortably by seven points, despite virtually nothing separating the top four heading to Kent. Yet that impressive display was far from the only example of Gamble blasting through the field – a feat that proved key to his title success.
The first recovery job came at Brands earlier in the year. Clutch failure in the first race put Gamble on the back foot but he surged up the order from 13th to fourth to salvage five vital points in race two.
There was then an even more dramatic comeback at Donington Park later in the season after a bizarre qualifying clash with title rival Will Martin left Gamble with a broken radiator and starting last. But he rose to eighth in the opener and then got on the podium in the second contest on a weekend where he gained 20 places.
“I think, if I didn’t lose my splitter in the second race, I could’ve fought for the lead there,” says Gamble.
However, the one setback he struggled to recover from came at Croft when Martin clattered into Gamble at Clervaux in the first contest and left the Century driver in the barriers.
“That was a bit of a killer really but, from that point onwards, we were on a constant comeback,” adds Gamble. “We were 30 points behind and then we led it into the final round – so it’s been a bit of a roller coaster. You’re always negative after something like that [Croft].
“When we got to Knockhill and the pace was strong, then I thought, ‘Let’s just go for it every round’, and it worked out. The odds were against us, but we still managed to do it.”
Gamble’s strong second half of the year coincided with a reversal in fortunes for early pacesetter Martin. The Eden Race Drive competitor began the campaign with six podiums in the first eight races.
But it turned sour from Knockhill, as track-limits penalties and a clash with Stephen Jelley halted his charge. His strife allowed the much-improved Hugo Ellis (Team Parker) and Charles Rainford (CCK Motorsport) into the mix, even if they too struggled for consistency at times.
That all meant Brands was essentially a winner-takes-all shootout and each of the contenders had a spell in the prime position. But Martin ruled himself out when he spun into the gravel at Paddock when leading the opener.
Ellis then struggled far more in the rain of race two and Rainford just had no answer to Gamble’s blistering performance. It was the perfect tonic for the Midlander on his return to the championship after a tricky Toyota British Touring Car campaign last season.
“After such a tough year last year, it was such a relief to be back at the front and building that confidence,” he says.
Some of the Pro-Am runners also played cameo roles at the front as class champion Angus Whiteside and Abbie Eaton each took outright wins during a season in which virtually everyone’s fortunes fluctuated wildly.
British Formula 4
Deagen Fairclough was not lacking any confidence heading into the British Formula 4 season. Ahead of the first round, he made it clear the title was his target and told Autosport: “We’re here to break records.” Well, Fairclough is a teenager of his word and sure enough produced a campaign of unprecedented domination to secure the championship with five races to spare.
Some of the statistics surrounding the Hitech driver’s season are just staggering. Winning 14 of the 20 non-reversed-grid races is impressive, as is starting on pole for 15 of the 20 races where the order was based on qualifying, and he only once finished outside of the top five. Record after record tumbled and the title never looked like it was going anywhere else. Although, by his very high standards, Fairclough’s year did not get off to the best of starts.
“Having that mistake in qualifying in the first round put us P3,” he recalls. “I was a little bit gutted because all of the days prior to the first round that we had testing I was P1. That set me back a little bit but then, in the first race, we jumped them all at the start and won.” And he never looked back from that point onwards.
There were a few slight hiccups along the way, such as a couple of clashes with his closest rival, Rodin’s Alex Ninovic, at Brands Hatch and Snetterton, and getting caught up in a first-lap tangle on the Silverstone Grand Prix track, while Fairclough was denied another win when his car conked out at Thruxton. But these were all minor blips as he subsequently rocketed clear of the rest.
Ninovic was the only one who could really take the fight to Fairclough, and did triumph five times, but lacked the consistency to match the pacesetter. Reza Seewooruthun (Hitech) and James Higgins (Rodin) were the only other drivers to prevail in non-reversed-grid bouts.
Porsche Sprint Challenge GB
While four drivers arrived at the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Brands Hatch finale separated by as many points, it was actually the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB that had the closest finish. Seb Hopkins prevailed over Max Coates by just a solitary point at the end of a season that boasted plenty of close races. Ultimately, a couple more fastest laps for Coates or fewer poles for Hopkins could have made all the difference.
The introduction of the more powerful, more aerodynamic and more exciting RS version of the Cayman added a new dimension to the series for this year. But it was Team Parker’s Hopkins, who had previous Porsche experience in British GT, that stole the early advantage and his pole at the Snetterton opener was a sign of things to come. In fact, he always set the first or second fastest time in qualifying throughout the season, which gave him a great platform to build from.
But it was Coates’s consistency and lack of errors that kept him in the hunt. Matters came to a head between the pair in the second race at Oulton Park, when Hopkins made a wildly ambitious lunge on Coates into the chicane, but succeeded only in clattering into the Graves Motorsport driver and putting himself out. Worse was to come in the officials’ room as Hopkins was not only given a six-point deduction for the clash but also a 10-place grid penalty for the next round at Croft.
“In hindsight, if that incident had never happened, we would’ve been going into the Croft weekend with a really healthy points gap,” says Hopkins. “It did make it a bit more difficult than it should’ve been. I started 11th for the first race at Croft but it was my drive of the year going from the back to second place.”
Hopkins describes getting pole in North Yorkshire, ahead of his grid demotion, as a “message to the others”. A win and a second in the other two races certainly got his title bid back on track, only for another DNF – this time following a tangle with Toby Trice at the Donington Park hairpin, which was deemed a racing incident – to threaten to undo all the hard work.
“To pick myself back up from that was very difficult,” Hopkins admits.
Coates was also impressive in the wet conditions at Silverstone and had a fantastic scrap with Toro Verde’s Tom Bradshaw in the second contest. Despite missing out by the narrowest of margins, he still arrived in Kent with a 10-point advantage. But it was Coates’s turn to err as an optimistic move around the outside of Bradshaw at Druids resulted in contact and a damaged car dropped Coates back. And, although he closed on Hopkins initially in the finale, it was not enough to end his title drought.
“There was no other goal than to win the championship, second was not good enough,” concludes Hopkins. “To come across the line by just one point, that’s all it takes – it doesn’t matter if it’s [the winning margin] 30 points or one.”
Bradshaw and Hopkins’s stablemate, Will Jenkins, also arrived at Brands still just about in contention but, despite them both winning four times (bettering Coates’s three), they could not quite get on terms with the lead duo.
Mini Challenge
More Mini Challenge glory for Dan Zelos always looked the most likely result heading into the season. With two titles already to his name and the field lacking established frontrunners and instead mainly comprising young drivers still learning the ropes, further Zelos domination was on the cards. And, while Zelos did indeed end up taking the spoils, there were several surprising elements to the year for the Excelr8 Motorsport driver.
“We never expected to win the title with a round to spare and never expected to get an opportunity to race in British Touring Cars,” he says.
Zelos sealed the spoils at the penultimate Knockhill event after a super consistent campaign during which his worst finish was fifth. But the early coronation only arrived after team-mate Max Hall suffered driveshaft failure in Scotland.
“I had no idea it was even possible going into the final race!” Zelos continues. “I went out all guns blazing to fight hard but didn’t really have to.”
While that fourth place unexpectedly netted him the championship, his impressive results over the past few years enabled him to finally get a BTCC call-up with Excelr8 – an opportunity he grabbed with both hands.
Before that, Zelos faced a few threats in the early part of the Mini season and there were some entertaining races, including a thriller at Snetterton where he made a series of impressive overtakes that culminated in a last-lap Bomb Hole move on Hall to seal his third win of the weekend.
“Going into round one, we felt we had a good advantage over the rest of the field, but the rest of the field very quickly caught up,” adds Zelos. “A couple of drivers I’d been coaching in the Coopers for a number of years, so I had no doubt they’d get up to speed quickly and sometimes they used a few of my own tricks!”
Hall was one of those young whippersnappers and signalled his intent by taking two wins around Brands Hatch Indy. But a driveshaft problem in the middle Kent race, allied to tangling with Lydia Walmsley at the preceding Donington Park event, left him already on the back foot in the title battle. Another to grow stronger as the year progressed was fellow Excelr8 rookie Nathan Edwards, who also scored five victories and just pipped Jamie Osborne to third in the standings, albeit still well adrift of Zelos.
Autosport’s top 10 TOCA support series drivers of 2024
10. Charles Rainford
Given how close the Carrera Cup contenders were heading to the Brands Hatch finale, all four deserved a spot in our top 10. Fine margins separate their performances but, inevitably, one must be bottom of the quartet, and that is Rainford. He did finish runner-up in the standings but scored fewer wins than the rest (George Gamble also won twice, but also scored maximum points for top Pro entrant another two times) and Rainford was the only previous frontrunner with the continuity of staying at the same squad as 2023.
9. Hugo Ellis
Next of the Carrera Cup protagonists is Ellis. The Team Parker racer was contesting his third Porsche season but took a notable step forward to fight more established rivals. His best result last year was one podium, but underlined his improvement by scoring the most non-reversed-grid wins of all (three). Ultimately, Ellis lost too much ground at the Donington Park opener, where he had to take avoiding action from Sid Smith and damaged his car, which also put him at the back when race two was run at Brands.
8. Will Martin
Martin is the highest-placed of the defeated Carrera Cup pack, thanks to his early-season form. Despite striking a late deal to return to the GB series after a year in North America, and signing with Dino Zamparelli’s new Eden Race Drive squad, Martin enjoyed a flying start. Team and driver gelled instantly to win straight out of the box and enjoyed another three strong weekends to build a commanding lead. But it all went downhill thereafter and spinning off at Brands finale summed up the second half of his campaign.
7. Alex Ninovic
Much has been written about Deagen Fairclough’s British Formula 4 dominance, but it is also noteworthy just how far Ninovic finished ahead of the rest in second in the standings. The Australian was the only one able to get in the same postcode as the Hitech racer at times, and they enjoyed some intense scraps, but he could not consistently challenge Fairclough as the season went on. Massive 222.5-point deficit means he cannot be higher, but five wins and 88.5 points ahead of third is still meritorious.
6. Max Hall
It was easy to forget at times that this was Hall’s first full season in the JCW Minis and that he is only 17 years old. Having made his debut at the end of last year, the Cooper graduate was immediately on the pace and was a double winner at just the second event at Brands. Some early clashes and reliability misfortunes dented any ambitions of matching runaway points leader Dan Zelos, but five wins and a further three second places still marked Hall out as a potential star of the future.
5. Max Coates
Another year and another example of Coates falling agonisingly short of winning a title among the TOCA supports. Understandably devastated to finish just one point shy of Seb Hopkins in the Sprint Challenge, but that is still a tremendous achievement, especially when you consider Hopkins was the category pacesetter. The eventual champion’s better qualifying record (average race-one position was 1.33 compared to Coates’s 4.33) means he edges ahead in our rankings.
4. Seb Hopkins
The reality is Hopkins should have won the Sprint Challenge title more comfortably – and he admits his attempted move on Coates at Oulton Park made his task far trickier. Was supreme in qualifying and the Porsche series’ point-scoring system (with its narrow margins between each finishing position) naturally keeps title battles close. But, ultimately, the fact he only prevailed by one point means he is fourth of the champions in our top 10, despite battling more experienced rivals.
3. George Gamble
Considering how close the Carrera Cup title battle was, it might seem strange for Gamble to be five places ahead of any of his rivals. But the manner in which he clinched the glory in the Brands rain was a true champion’s drive. How he continually responded to any setback during the season was also mightily impressive as he gained almost 50 places from his starting positions during the year – no mean feat in a series where overtaking has historically proven to be pretty challenging.
2. Dan Zelos
Normally, dominantly wrapping up a title in August and not finishing a race lower than fifth would guarantee you a number one spot in our top 10. But, unfortunately for Zelos, his impressive Mini results came in the same year Fairclough did something very abnormal and reset record after record in British F4. Take nothing away from Zelos – it was a brilliant campaign, but his win percentage of 38% compared to Fairclough’s 47% means he has to drop back to second this year.
1. Deagen Fairclough
There was only ever one contender to finish top of the pile this year. Fairclough was near-faultless all season and it’s a measure of his character that he still notched up the wins long after the British F4 title was secured. He was particularly impressive in the rain, which he in part attributes to his family’s limited funding meaning he never had wet-weather tyres during his karting years, and was quite simply a pleasure to watch. Even though his opposition was not the strongest, it was still a masterclass.
