Jake Hill Digs Deep for Double Top-Six at Thruxton
Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport and reigning BTCC champ Jake Hill showed serious heart at Thruxton last weekend, overcoming wild weather, on-track chaos, and some hard hits to bag two top-six finishes—and keep the title fight very much alive.
The notoriously fast Hampshire circuit hosted Round 4 of the 2025 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship, and while Thruxton always delivers drama, this weekend piled on the pressure from the get-go.
Saturday started off dry but unpredictable. Jake was straight on the pace in practice, putting his WSR-built BMW 330i M Sport P3 in FP1, then P10 in FP2 while the team dialled in setup. But as qualifying approached, the skies opened—and it was biblical.
With monsoon-like rain flooding the track, visibility dropped and grip vanished. In a rear-wheel-drive machine like the BMW, conditions were brutal. Jake aquaplaned at 140mph and still managed to haul it around for P8 on the grid. Heroic stuff, given the circumstances.
Sunday—Race 1: Classic Jake Hill hustle. A lightning launch from P8, carving forward—until a bit of elbows-out racing from Senna Proctor shoved him onto the grass. Momentum lost, but not the fire. Jake fought back hard after a mid-race safety car, reclaiming spots to cross the line in a solid P6.
Race 2 delivered the action. Jake locked into a fierce scrap with Dan Rowbottom for the final podium spot—some proper edge-of-your-seat BTCC racing. The pair traded paint and positions before hitting oil dropped by Mikey Doble’s stricken Vauxhall. Rowbottom skated off at Allard, but Jake somehow held it. As the race wore on, rear grip faded and he slipped back—but still brought it home in P6, later upgraded to P5 after Josh Cook’s car was found to be too low in post-race checks.
Then came Race 3—and the big chance. A sweet reverse-grid draw put Jake P3 on the line, and he absolutely nailed the launch, hitting the front early on. He briefly dropped behind Rowbottom, but stayed firmly in podium territory and started to pull clear. That is, until the safety car bunched the field and undid all his hard work. On colder tyres than his front-wheel-drive rivals, Jake found himself under attack. Then, disaster. In a tense battle with Ash Sutton, the BMW was forced off at Noble, straight through the grass. Mud and grass clogged the front end, overheating the car and forcing Jake to pit. He rejoined at the back, coming home P18 in what could’ve been a real headline result.
Jake commented: “It’s definitely been a tough weekend. The BMW felt good through the high-speed sections, and the chassis was working well, but we struggled on the straights with a noticeable straight-line speed deficit compared to some of the other cars. That made racing particularly challenging. I'm already looking forward to Oulton Park and the chance to bounce back.”
Despite the setbacks, there’s no doubting the effort or the fight. Jake now sits fifth in the standings—still very much in the title mix as the BTCC heads to Oulton Park on June 21–22.
Photos: Jakob Ebrey
