THOMPSON’S CUPRA RUNNETH OVER

Such is the nature of the Jack Sears Trophy – a BTCC sub-class for those who have never scored an overall podium finish or won the JST itself – that it can sometimes be a rather uninspiring contest won by the not-quite-good-enough driver who does the least-mediocre job.

This year it’s been different. Former Carrera Cup GB ace George Gamble was the hot favourite in a Ciceley Motorsport BMW, but the team has suffered persistent maddening problems with electronics shutdowns, and he’s also been involved in a few scrapes. Fellow rookie Ash Hand has been rapid too when he had the chance in his 2017-vintage Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra – the oldest car on the grid.

But both have been upstaged by Bobby Thompson, who has been something of a revelation this year in the Team Hard Cupra Leon steered last season by Jack Goff. Thompson came close to JST honours in 2020, before a Croft barrel-roll in his Trade

Price Cars Audi pummelled his finances into oblivion. At Brands last weekend, he put that right, and his 11th JST ‘class’ win of the season in race one wrapped up the title for him. Not that he was playing it safe. Thompson had qualified the Cupra, a car he says is still on the development curve, a superb sixth, and proved a proper fly in the ointment among overall championship contenders Jake Hill and Colin Turkington – as he had every right to. He only got bumped down to an eventual seventh thanks to contact from Hill at Graham Hill Bend.

Another JST win came in the second race thanks to Gamble’s false-start penalty, before his engine failure in the finale cost him what would have been his second overall podium of 2022. Thompson wants to stay at Hard in 2023 – most other teams are out of reach on budget, but this 26-year-old deserves a shot at a proper long-term BTCC career.