Restart Racing pushed through a challenging Saturday at Donington Park GP in the 2026 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship, with Dan Lloyd making his return to the squad.
In a format new for the 2026 campaign, Saturday sees teams challenged by just one Free Practice session, before a traditional timed qualifying outing and the grid-setting Race to Pole.
Unlike the season-starting romp around Donington Park’s National layout, August’s action sees the BTCC paddock tasked with the full 2.49-mile GP variant.
Saturday started with a testing Free Practice where Chris Smiley finished 16th and Dan 17th. Dan spent a good portion of his session in the pits with a gear lever issue, missing valuable time as he sought to re-acquaint himself with the Hyundai i30N Fastback. Chris’ car stayed on the racing surface, but struggled with rotation on corner exit, as a red flag for a problem elsewhere gave the team time to regroup midway through the session.
At the flag, laps in the mid-1:34s posted the pair to their positions and directed the team to where attention would be required ahead of qualifying.
In no warm welcome, Dan found himself in a tricky group for qualifying and posted a lap of 1:34.332 for an overall 19th. Chris would post a 1:34.054 for 12th, making our #22 the second-fastest Hyundai on the grid.
Both drivers would fall one place as the Race to Pole commenced, with Sam Osborne pipping Chris and Charles Rainford getting past Dan. However, after a safety car-enforced pause, both drivers would show promising race pace ahead of Sunday’s action.
Dan began to chip away at those in front of him in a tight midfield battle, taking 17th from Lewis Gilbert on lap four. He would also benefit from engine issues for Daryl De Leon and Tom Chilton in moving to 15th by lap seven, but later fall to 16th as an out-of-place Mikey Doble climbed through the field. Working hard to hold of Lewis Selby, Dan would claim 16th at the flag as cars ahead settled into a rhythm.
Chris also found himself in a situation where he had to chip away at those ahead after the opening tour. With De Leon and Chilton falling, he would move up to 11th on lap seven and did look primed to fight for a top 10 finish. However, he attempted a bold move around the outside of Dexter Patterson at Redgate and, after being off the ideal line, found himself 13th as those around took advantage through Holly Wood and the Craner Curves.
While Saturday’s running did not see the ideal finishing positions for the Restart Racing Hyundais, hard work overnight will see the squad able to push forward through Sunday’s three Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship races.
Chris said:
“So that’s Saturday over and done at Donington Park GP.
“Yeah, a bit of a strange day to be honest. We had free practice this morning and yeah, we’re really struggling to get the car to rotate, to get the drive back out again.
“Made quite a few changes for qualifying. We ended up qualifying P12 – wasn’t the best, wasn’t the worst. Thought that would get ourselves into the top 10 somewhere.
“Yeah, start of the race got away with the pack, got myself into P11 and probably should have finished 10th. Went for a move in turn one that was sort of a little bit ambitious, but yeah, it didn’t work out. We ended up finishing P13. In the top 10 definitely was realistic.
“The car felt good over the race pace. We just feel really, really strangled in the straights. Yeah, there’s other cars out there [that] have much more speed than us in a straight line.
“Our car feels pretty hooked up in the corners. Our traction feels pretty good. So, yeah, a little bit frustrating not to have the straight line speed, but I suppose that’s just the way the championship is sometimes.
“Hoping to get myself into the top 10 tomorrow and yeah, trying to get some good points.”
Dan said:
“First day back in the car. This year hasn’t gone quite to plan, there was a lot of catching up that I needed to do.
“Unfortunately, we had a gear lever issue in first practice, which meant we spent quite a bit of time in the pits, so we lost some valuable laps.
“A lot of work to do with the car. A lot of changes for qualifying, really struggling with the rear end at the moment, made big changes and it didn’t solve anything.
“And then in the race, raced okay, but the pace just not there. Same issue with the rear. So went from 19 to 16. So definitely not the fairy tale come back.
“But yeah we’ve just got a lot of work to do.
“It was always going to be the challenge what the setup was going to be like on the first day back in it, I’ve got some work to do and some cobwebs to dust off as well. And yeah, a lot of changes tonight and hopefully we can move forward again tomorrow.”
