Currently reading: Tom Chilton on why he's ready to win in the BTCC and WTCC
Tom Chilton is breaking new ground by taking on both the British and world touring car championships in the same year. We find out why

What’s the biggest challenge facing a racing driver competing in two major championships? Staying focused on each? Balancing the pressure? Or perhaps getting to grips with different cars? Nope. The answer is much simpler.

“Jet lag,” says Tom Chilton, world touring car driver for Sébastien Loeb Racing and recently confirmed British Touring Car Championship returnee with Power Maxed Racing. Chilton, who is back in the BTCC after a five-year hiatus, will rack up the air miles this season. He’ll contest a total of 50 races: 30 in the BTCC spread across 10 weekends and 20 in the WTCC at a further 10 events.

“It’s the first time this has ever been done in these two series, so I’m a bit of a guinea pig,” says the 31-year-old from Reigate in Surrey.

Chilton, who is the older brother of former F1 driver Max, burst into the BTCC in 2002 at the age of 17 and finished third in his first race. Over the next decade he raced in the BTCC for Honda, Vauxhall, Team Dynamics and Team Aon/Ford, amassing 12 race victories and a best finish of fifth in the championship.

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In 2012 he graduated to the WTCC with Team Aon and the global series has been his focus ever since, but he says he has unfinished business in the domestic championship. “My last BTCC race was at Silverstone in 2011 and I won by keeping Jason Plato behind me,” he says. “I want to come back as I finished: by winning.”

He acknowledges that might be a tall order. Chilton will be driving a brand new Vauxhall Astra – “We’ve only got two test days, so we’ll be on the back foot” – for a team that is embarking on its most ambitious BTCC campaign to date.

Nonetheless, Chilton reckons he can capitalise on the series’ unpredictable racing. “The current BTCC regulations have led to more overtaking and closer action,” he says. “If one car is carrying 75kg of success ballast while running a hard tyre and another car is on the soft tyre option with no extra weight, there will be a difference in lap times of about two seconds.”

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This, says Chilton, will create great opportunities for lunges into corners and last-minute overtaking moves. The BTCC is renowned for its tough, bumper-banging racing, and Chilton doesn’t think it will take him long to remember all the old tricks.

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“After 10 years in the British Touring Car Championship, you get to know how to drive in it. I’m pretty sure I’ve still got bruises from 10 years ago – all from Plato,” he jokes.

Although Chilton will drive a new and unfamiliar car in the BTCC, he will enjoy more consistency in the WTCC, where he is spending a second term at Sébastien Loeb Racing and will drive a Citroën C-Elysée WTCC, which is based on a saloon model sold in eastern Europe.

“I’ve learned the car now [after the 2016 season]. It’s so different from anything else,” he says. “It’s five times more difficult to drive than any other racing car I’ve driven.”

What this car requires to go fast, explains Chilton, is a new technique – one that involves taking each corner on the race track as it comes. “You basically do the same thing in most touring cars,” he says, “but in the Citroën you have to get to each corner and say: ‘What do I have to do to the steering and brakes for this particular corner?’.”

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After a slow start to last season, Chilton amassed five podiums, including a race victory in Argentina. Although 2017 might be another building year, he’s looking at racing in both the WTCC and BTCC for more than one season.

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“I’m pretty confident I can eventually win both championships in the same year, and I’ll be the first driver to do so,” he says. “I’ll let you know just how big the bags under my eyes are after this season is over.”

Looking longer term, Chilton would like to compete in the LM GTE category at the Le Mans 24 Hours. He says he was encouraged by watching former BTCC rival Andy Priaulx competing in a Ford GT at the French race in 2016.

“Racing in the GT category of Le Mans is on my bucket list,” says Chilton. “I was so happy when I saw Andy Priaulx race at Le Mans; I’d love to have done that.”

A decade ago Chilton contested several endurance races in an LMP1 prototype, but he concedes that his time in high-downforce racing cars is over. Even though he is only just into his 30s, he says he’s “too old and not quite as lean as I used to be”.

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Right now he’s where he wants to be. He says his heart is in touring car racing, because the close competition suits his style, and he feels proud to be back in a British series, competing in front of what he refers to as “the best fans in the world”.

Chilton’s 50-race schedule will begin with the opening BTCC event at Brands Hatch on 1-2 April. As soon as the chequered flag falls on the final race at the Kent circuit, he’ll jump on an aeroplane to Morocco to prepare for the first WTCC round on a semi-permanent street circuit in Marrakech. Just seven days after that, he’ll line up on the grid at Donington Park in the BTCC Astra once again. Before April is over, he’ll turn his focus back to the WTCC for the second event at Monza.

Chilton laughs off any suggestion that fatigue could be an issue. “When I’m 60 years old, I can go back and do something more relaxing where I can race one-handed,” he says. “I’m very excited about it. As long as I’m in the air or balancing on two wheels in a racing car, I’m happy.”

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