Barwell Motorsport made an immediate impression in the BTCC 'Big League' yesterday, when our teenage driving sensation, Tom Chilton, scored an amazing 3rd place overall finish in the Sprint Race at Brands Hatch. Having qualified in fifth place on the grid, Chilton's year-old Barwell Motorsport Vauxhall Astra then went on to fight tooth and nail with the BTCC establishment throughout the race. As well as becoming the youngest ever BTCC driver, Tom also thus became the youngest ever BTCC podium visitor on Monday. The team's joy was enhanced by the fact that its other Astra driver, former World Superbike star, Aaron Slight, also came home in the top six on Barwell's debut in the senior category.

During pre-season testing Tom had regularly been in amongst the top six on the time sheets, but you never quite know until the first Official Qualifying session what the true nature of your competitiveness is. The first 20-minute period of Qualifying counts for the Sprint Race grid, and Tom made good use of his new front tyres to record his best-ever time around the daunting Brands Grand Prix circuit (which he has never raced on before!), and qualify fifth. In the second, Feature-race qualifying period, he hit 'traffic' on his optimum lap and slipped back down to seventh spot. All part of the learning process! Slight, meanwhile, was suffering badly from a lack of mileage after a testing shunt, and took the first session to get back up to speed in his Astra. Once his confidence was fully restored, he put in an excellent effort to get within a few 10ths of a second of Tom's time in the Feature period and claim ninth on the grid.

Chilton made a reasonable first-ever BTCC getaway at the start of the 15-lap Sprint race, but the experienced pros on the grid behind him were immediately snapping at his heels and trying to force him back down the order. After he had staved off an early challenge from the factory Honda Civic of ex-F3 star, Andy Priaulx, Tom set about launching an attack on the two Peugeot 406 Coupes run by ex-factory team, VLR. His Kiwi Barwell team-mate, Slight, enjoyed an almighty battle in the early stages against both Hondas of Priaulx of Alan Morrison, and both factory Proton Impians of David Leslie and Phil Bennett. This scrap, for eighth place at the time, provided one of the highlights of the race, and it was Aaron who pulled off one of the best overtaking moves of the entire event when he went past one of the Hondas on the outside under braking for the 130mph Hawthorns Bend!

Aaron was unable to capitalise on this move, sadly, as shortly afterwards he suffered an electrically-related problem which meant his engine cut out on an intermittent basis during each lap. He was able to soldier on, however, and eventually claimed sixth place and a useful points haul. Chilton's car was 100% healthy, however, and with seven laps to go the 17-year-old had superbly reeled in the Peugeot duo of Dan Eaves and Tim Harvey, running in 2nd and 3rd respectively. Unfortunately for Tom, Harvey is a former BTCC champion, and he used his huge experience to keep the youngster at bay for the next four laps. This slowed Tom up considerably, and allowed Paul O'Neill's factory Egg Sport Astra to catch up, and then sneak past Tom as he was tripped up by Harvey's wily defensive tactics.

The final lap proved to be an incredibly eventful affair, as firstly Tom was caught out by Harvey's early braking into the Druids Hairpin and unfortunately hit the Peugeot up the back by mistake and knocked him into the gravel trap. This meant he was heading for fourth place, but this was converted into a fine third when O'Neill crashed at Clearways corner after puncturing one of his tyres.

Tom was thus fully fired up to try and get on the podium a second time in the 20-lap Feature race, but disaster struck just after the first corner. Two cars tangled just ahead of Tom and set off a chain reaction of events which led to another car slamming into the side of the Barwell Astra, and punting it into the barriers. Sadly, his race was over there and then. Slight managed to avoid the carnage, however, and at the re-start settled into ninth place. After the pit stops had shaken out, Aaron then looked set to try and challenge Harvey and Warren Hughes (factory MG ZS) in 7th and 8th respectively. Unfortunately, however, his clutch had packed up just before the pit stop and left him in 2nd gear to pull away in at the stop. With the electronic pit lane speed-limiter only working whilst operated when in 1st gear, it made it difficult for Aaron to keep to the limit, and he just got out of the pits a little too fast. This meant he had to endure a pit lane 'drive-through' penalty, and thus lost any chance of improving on his ninth place. With regards to the Independents' Cup standings, however, Aaron scored a third and a second place, and currently lies just three points behind leader Dan Eaves.