Lewis Hamilton went incognito to Donington Park last weekend to watch his younger brother Nicolas score his best result to date in the British Touring Car Championship.
The seven-times Formula 1 world champion will have seen an eventful opening to arguably Britain’s most popular home-grown motorsport series. While F1 may be the top draw for most viewers, it’s far from the only series which captures the attention of our writers.
The unusually long gap between Formula 1 races has given us more time to catch up on some of those categories. Here’s four series our writers would encourage you to sample.
BTCC: Best of British
Last year’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix had an appealing, ‘old school’ feeling which immediately transported me back to my childhood. The small park in Imola reminded me of weekends spent with my family watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Sunseeker Rally, World Rally Championship – and the British Touring Car Championship.
My dad works as a circuit doctor and was usually waiting patiently in the medical centre hoping for a quiet day. The smell of burgers would fill the air as the locals set up vans and you would embrace the familiar British spectator feeling of either being too hot or too cold, and wet.
It never mattered as soon as the engines roared into life and the racing began. That moment in Italy reminded me why I got into motorsport and how special a sport it is.
Last weekend, I headed to Donington Park for the first round of the British Touring Car Championship, thrilled to be getting back to work in such a vibrant and friendly paddock. With a plethora of racing throughout the weekend shown live on ITV4, you can’t help but feel warmth when the engines start spluttering off the start line. What ensues over the three races on Sunday is mostly chaotic – elbows are out and game faces are on.
The large, heavy cars are far slower than F1’s, but due to the nature of the racing, we often see a lot of close battles. The BTCC also visits some of the best tracks in the UK, including my favourite Brands Hatch, plus Thruxton, Oulton Park, Silverstone and Knockhill.
Last season, the battle went down to the season finale at Brands Hatch after a double victory from Tom Ingram as the man from High Wycombe beat rivals Ash Sutton and Jake Hill to the title. This season is looking set to be another exciting and competitive campaign.
Sometimes working in Formula 1, you forget the simplicity of motorsports when it’s stripped back – but the BTCC is a series that always delivers.
Claire Cottingham
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IndyCar: Spec racing done right
Which series dependably produces the most thrilling and diverse racing without resorting to DRS-style gimmicks?
Formula E deserves an honourable mention – not to mention more attention – for the quality of its racing this year. Ditching Fanboost has done it no harm at all (they get a loud ‘we told you so’ for that) and the ‘Gen3’ chassis is producing better races than either of its predecessors.
But in recent years one championship more than any other has shown F1 and the rest how to consistently produce top-drawer racing. And, like Formula E, it deserve a greater audience.
IndyCar quickly discovered it was onto a good thing when it overhauled the aerodynamics of its cars back in 2018. Since then it has seldom disappointed wherever it has raced.
And what a range of venues it visits. Undulating road courses like Barber Motorsports Park, scene of this weekend’s race. True street circuits, unforgivably narrow and bumpy. And speedways unlike anything on the grand prix calendar, offering a formidable challenge too rarely tackled by today’s F1 drivers.
It has one of the best rosters of drivers outside of F1 as well, with potentially a dozen different winners from weekend to weekend. Last time out impressive American youngster Kyle Kirkwood produced a classy, pole-to-win drive at Long Beach.
I can think of no higher compliment that when IndyCar clashes with an F1 weekend I have to force myself not to watch it to avoid being distracted by work – and often fail.
Of course a key part of the reason IndyCar produces such great action is that the drivers have access to largely the same hardware. This bears stressing, as it’s a big part of the reason why F1’s racing will probably never be as close. But there’s room in my heart for both.
Keith Collantine
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Italian F4: Massive grids
Although it ultimately hasn’t had too many graduates go on to F1 since its creation in 2014, with former Super Formula star Ukyo Sasahara remarkably the only driver who has won at single-seaters’ top level, the Italian Formula 4 championship is still the favoured series by most F1 junior teams and as such is where you will find the biggest and best grids at this level of motorsport.
Last weekend’s opening round at Imola attracted 37 drivers, of which seven were F1 juniors. Red Bull-backed Arvid Lindblad leads the points, with McLaren protege Ugo Ugochukwu third in the standings. The other F1 juniors are outside of the top ten, but that shows just how competitive this series is.
In fact, because it is so popular, Italian F4 has had to adapt its usual three-race event format to split the cars into groups so each driver gets to contest two of the three ‘heat’ races and then there is a ‘final’, with the grid set by the results of the previous three races.
The racing is super-close among the 10 teams, even when the once-in-a-generation superstars are driving for the series’ usual benchmark outfit Prema. The calendar’s mix of four current F1 tracks and three iconic Italian venues makes it attractive for drivers seeking relevant track experience on the way to the top but also puts a spotlight on the circuits with as much history but are rarely used higher up the single-seater ladder.
Try not to enjoy a 12-car lead fight at Mugello later this year, or a season-long battle between young drivers that Ferrari and Red Bull have already picked out as their future stars, I dare you.
Ida Wood
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F1 Esports: Virtually better than the real thing
No, please, don’t stop reading.
Ever since Formula 1 began its official Esports series back in 2017, the simracing championship has faced as much cynicism, ignorance and plain bad faith criticism as Formula E has. “Who cares?”, they decried. “Why would I watch other people playing a video game?”.
Yes, technically this is Formula 1. But to put it simply, if you enjoy close, exciting and unpredictable racing in Formula 1, why wouldn’t you check out the Esports Pro Series?
Across six seasons, the official F1 simracing championship has provided genuinely brilliant racing action. With all ten teams involved running with equal physics, it’s the closest thing fans will have to ever seeing F1 as a spec series.
With a condensed calendar of 12 races spread over four three-race events running to 50% race distance, F1’s Esports series requires far less of a time commitment to follow than pretty much any other series you could think of. The action is astonishingly close. Races are routinely won by less than a second with closer top tens than your typical NASCAR race.
Last season saw six different race winners for five teams across 12 races with a first-time champion crowned for McLaren. And do not think for a second that the sterile, controlled environment of a game makes F1 Esports free from controversy, off-track drama or allegations of cheating – that could not be further from the truth.
But perhaps the best element of F1 Esports is that, unlike every other series above, everyone reading has the opportunity to compete in it. Simply set a fast enough time in the qualifying event on the official F1 game and you could be on your way to being drafted by one of the ten F1 teams.
Yes, the official F1 game has its fault – many of them. No, its physics engine isn’t as authentic as iRacing’s or Assetto Corsa’s. But if you want the best possible racing action Formula 1 has to offer, the answer is to go virtual.
Will Wood
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Over to you
Got a passion for NASCAR? Never miss a rally? What are your favourite kinds of motorsport outside Formula 1 – and what appeals most about them? Let us know in the comments.
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