The second part of BTCC: From the Pitwall picks up the 2026 British Touring Car Championship story from Round 2 at Brands Hatch, where Árón Taylor-Smith ended a decade without a win with an emotional lights-to-flag victory in wet conditions — hearing the Irish national anthem ring around the Brands Hatch speakers for the first time in years. Tom Ingram took Race 3 to finally convert his pace into victory after the frustrations of Donington.

Round 3 at Snetterton brought scorching temperatures and a performance from Charles Rainford that announced him as a genuine title contender, while Ash Sutton produced one of the drives of the season to recover from the back of the grid in Race 2 — only for Gordon Shedden to hold him off by less than a second in Race 3. Away from the championship battle, Nic Hamilton's Jack Sears Trophy win produced one of the most emotional podium moments in recent BTCC memory.

At Oulton Park for Round 4, Chequered Past was back on the pitwall and the grid as a Startline marshal — managing the Race 2 start countdown as Sutton dominated by nineteen seconds, and watching from the pitwall as a chaotic Race 3 unfolded, with two safety cars, track limits warnings throughout, and Charles Rainford taking his second win of the season.

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The 2026 British Touring Car Championship season opened at Donington Park in April — and it wasted no time making its presence felt. A brand new team arrived carrying one of the sport's most recognisable names. The new Race to Pole format produced its first headline immediately.

Sunday brought the new Closed Loop Boost Scrutineering system into sharp focus with a cascade of penalties reshaping the entire classification. Through it all, Ash Sutton charged from twenty-first on the grid to demonstrate precisely why he is a championship favourite.

Chequered Past was on the pitwall throughout as a marshal on the Startline team — showing penalty boards, managing the Race 3 grid countdown, and coordinating penalty communications with race control.

This is the race weekend as it looks from inside the barriers.

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The eighteenth of June spans nearly ninety years of Le Mans history, and four races that couldn't be more different from each other.

In 1927, a Bentley crippled in a multi-car crash raced through the night on one headlamp, chasing a lead it had no right to close. In 1966, Ford arrived with the most dominant team in the race's history — and still managed to deny their best driver the win he had earned. In 2005, a privateer French team outpaced everyone and almost pulled off one of the great upsets. And in 2016, Le Mans broke Toyota's heart one more time.

Cover image: Ford GTs Win LeMans 1966 by Michael CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Link

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The 17th of June has seen some of the most improbable results in the history of Le Mans.

In 1933, Tazio Nuvolari and Raymond Sommer led the race in an Alfa Romeo — until the fuel tank started leaking. What followed involved makeshift repairs, borrowed chewing gum from a rival pit, and one of the most dramatic last laps the circuit had ever seen. In 1939, a single Bugatti Type 57C Tank — one car, entered alone — took on the field in what would prove to be the last Le Mans before the Second World War. Jean-Pierre Wimille and Pierre Veyron drove it to victory. Eight weeks later, Jean Bugatti was dead. The race would not return for a decade.

In 1995, McLaren arrived at Le Mans for the first time with a car designed for the road. Seven F1 GTRs entered, one of them a last-minute works entry assembled around a Japanese sponsor nobody else would take. In the rain, against purpose-built prototypes, they were extraordinary. The winning crew of Dalmas, Lehto and Sekiya made history.

And in 2017, the number two Porsche 919 Hybrid rejoined the race on Saturday evening from 56th place, eighteen laps behind the leader. By Sunday afternoon, it had won.

Cover image: By Martin Lee - The wining Mclaren F1 GTR #59 of Yannick Dalmas, Masanori Sekiya & J.J.Lehto at Ford Chicane at Le Mans 1995, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

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16th June is a date that has delivered some of motorsport's most extraordinary stories.

In 1984, Porsche made the remarkable decision to boycott their own sport's most prestigious race — and the privateers they left behind produced one of the great Le Mans comebacks.

In 2007, a technological watershed: the first time two diesel prototypes went head to head at La Sarthe, in a battle between Audi and Peugeot that would define a decade of endurance racing.

And in 2018, a Japanese manufacturer entered Le Mans for the twentieth time — carrying the weight of two consecutive heartbreaks — and faced the race that had always found a way to deny them.

Cover Image: By Fabrice Pluchet, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

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Five races. Ninety years. One date.

The fifteenth of June has a habit of producing the unexpected at Le Mans. In 1929, Bentley arrived to collect what they’d already won twice before — and they did, but not without being made to work for it. In 1935, Alfa Romeo’s pursuit of a fifth consecutive win ended when their lead driver was given the wrong information by his own pit crew, and a Lagonda running on its last drops of oil took the prize. In 1985, a customer car humiliated the factory, driven in part by a man racing under a false name. In 1996, a car built from a mothballed Jaguar chassis beat the full Porsche works effort, and handed the win to the youngest driver ever to win Le Mans. And in 2019, a wiring error made before the race started determined who finished first.

Chequered Past is a podcast about motorsport history. Find us at linktr.ee/chequeredpastpod.

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Four races. Four dates. All June the fourteenth.

In 1924, a privately entered Bentley fought three works Lorraine-Dietrichs through brutal heat to give the British marque its first Le Mans victory. In 1952, a Frenchman named Pierre Levegh drove alone for nearly twenty-three hours — and came within one hour of winning the race by himself. In 1969, Jacky Ickx walked to his car in protest, started last, and won the closest finish in the race's history. And in 1980, Jean Rondeau won Le Mans in a car bearing his own name

Cover image: By ZANTAFIO56 - 24 heures du MANS 1969, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

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Three races share the 13th of June. Three times, the result confounded expectations.

In 1953, Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton spent the night in a French bar after being disqualified before the race had started. By Sunday afternoon they had won — at the first average speed of over 100 miles per hour in Le Mans history — in a Jaguar C-Type running disc brakes for the first time in competition.

In 1970, the dominant JW Automotive Gulf Porsches of Jo Siffert and Pedro Rodriguez were eliminated by driver error and mechanical failure through a rain-soaked night. What was left was a race of survival. Of 51 starters, only seven cars were classified. The winner was a car that had qualified fifteenth, driven by a man who had promised his wife he would retire the moment he won Le Mans.

In 1987, a change in fuel specification destroyed most of Porsche's own fleet within the first hour. Jaguar, who had won the four preceding championship rounds, appeared set to end Porsche's six-year winning streak — until a tyre failure at 230 miles per hour changed the course of the race. One Porsche survived. It was enough.

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