Hamilton set to line-up in Championship return at Snetterton

Nicolas Hamilton, brother of Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton, will be among the grid at Snetterton as the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship returns from its summer break tomorrow.

The 23-year-old, who suffers from cerebral palsy and drives a specially-adapted Audi S3 for Thurrock’s AmDracing.com team, made his debut at the previous round, held at Croft, and recorded encouraging results.

And following his previous performance, Hamilton is relishing the opportunity to continue his progression at his favoured track.

“Snetterton is my favourite circuit, I love it,” he said.

“You’ve got so many different corners which are mega and it’s one of those tracks that is hard to be fast on, so I’m massively looking forward to the weekend.

“We had a great test there recently, so if I can just keep focussing on the times and matching or improving the time that I had then that would be a good step for me.”

The opening 15 rounds of the championship have produced eight different race winners, and just 39 points covers the top six in the standings, with 67 on offer at Snetterton.

The annual Norfolk round has traditionally provided a pointer to how the title battle will evolve, with the teams having spent the summer break improving their cars.

Favourites for victory will be the Honda Racing (Civic Type R) and Buntingford-based BMR (VW CC) teams.

Honda’s Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal and BMR’s Jason Plato and Colin Turkington are all former champions, and currently occupy four of the top five places in the overall standings.

The field of 32 cars features at least 10 potential race winners, including reigning champion team WSR (BMW 1-Series) with triple World Champion Andy Priaulx, MG with 2013 champion Andrew Jordan and the return of race-winning team Motorbase (Ford Focus), which topped the times in a recent test at the Norfolk circuit.

The drivers will compete in three races, with the third employing a reverse-grid system which is guaranteed to shake up the order.

n This weekend also sees Josh Webster, from Mickfield, near Debenham, racing in rounds nine and 10 of the Porsche Carrera Cup at Snetterton.

Webster is second in the overall standings following his first eight outings.