When Max Joined Tom At The BTCC

When Max Joined Tom At The BTCC

The resumption of the BTCC season at Croft not only saw Tom Chilton return to the top step of the podium for the first time since the opening rounds of 2023, but also saw younger brother Max join him on track in the support package.

The former F1 and IndyCar racer lined up on the grid in the guest races for Pre-66 Touring Cars at the wheel of a Ford Cortina built by former BTCC champion Andrew Jordan and run by Team Dynamics – the outfit that joined forces with EXCELR8 over the off-season to strengthen the Team BRISTOL STREET MOTORS programme.

On-track, Max scored a best result of third across the weekend to ensure he picked up silverware of his own, whilst off-track, he joined Tom for a quick chat about their respective careers...

What is it like having a brother who is also a racing driver, but who has taken a totally different route in his career?

TC: It’s lovely to have Max here alongside the family, and it’s always been nice to have something in common and to have a shared passion through motorsport.

We have gone down very different routes with our careers after the early years, as Max wanted to follow the single-seater route and target Formula 1 and IndyCar, whereas I was too large for that and wanted to look more towards touring cars and sportscars.

We’ve always been competitive and I’d say Max has always been more competitive than me, be that playing on the Playstation when he was trying to grab the controller from my hand or smacking the steering wheel on his go-kart when he was being beaten!

But he’s a fantastic driver and my only concern was that he was never as sideways as me. However, he then came here with the Cortina and watching him wrestling it round the track, I can see he’s got the Tom gene!

MC: I think it’s unhealthy if you don’t have some kind of sibling rivalry, but because we’d taken different routes in our careers, we’ve never really had a fair chance to compete. The only real time we could do it was in go-karts and I’ve got a weight advantage there - or that’s his excuse!

It’s amazing to be here as I’ve raced for 22 years before retiring from full-time competition in IndyCars a few years back, and I’ve gone out on track in the Cortina, had a load of sideways moments and picked up a podium.

Let’s talk about racing together, which you have done before...

MC: I’ll give my view first, and then he twist the truth and change it! We raced together when I was 16 in an LMP1 machine, and this was a 200mph car that Tom had already been competing in. We went to the south of France and he went out and did some laps and set a time before I got chance to get behind the wheel. I went out and did my first run and lapped quicker than him, which I think came as a bit of a shock!

TC: I don’t remember it like that!

MC: I think I was about a second and a half quicker, or something like that, but we raced well together when we went competed at Silverstone. We were up against the factory Peugeot guys and did really well before we lost some time in the pits having some repair work done.

If we’d raced the last ten years together then I think we’d be really competitive with each other, but we’re in our 30s now and so I think we’d just enjoy it now if we were on track as a team. We actually have the Zytek in the family again and we’re planning to go out and race it this year which is exciting – and now he can change the story!.

TC: I’m sure when we went to Silverstone, I qualified because I was quicker...

MC: Didn’t you crash?

TC: No, but I’m sure that over the race runs you were something crazy like 50s quicker in a stint before you were young and fit, and I was older and starting to get love handles! Max is super-fast and consistent as well as being a total professional, and I’m sure he’d beat me over a single lap now.

(Tom then departs for the pitlane walkabout and interview session)

So how did you come to be at Croft?

MC: Like anything in life, it takes time. I was racing professionally for so many years that I didn’t really have time for fun things like this, but one thing I have always loved is the opportunity to go to Goodwood, which is where this came from.

You get the most amazing racing in old classic cars with no downforce, decent power-to-weight and skinny tyres, which means there is plenty of oversteer and understeer, plenty of wheel locking and it’s all very visual.

I’ve had the chance to race Mustangs and Cortinas but really loved the latter, although I was always put in a period car at Goodwood that meant I was off the pace of the leaders. I didn’t know if it was the car, or it was me, but we had a car made by Andrew and Mike Jordan and immediately I was two seconds quicker.

People often ask me if I would race a touring car and when I have a weekend like this, then it makes me think that maybe I would, but it would need to be a rear-wheel drive car. Tom has driven front-wheel cars for 25 years and know what to do, whereas I’d have no idea what to do as my head has always been in rear-wheel drive cars. Not naming any brands, but I’d need to be in rear-wheel drive.

It must be a while since you’ve been to Croft?

MC: It would have been in British F3, definitely in my rookie season in 2007 because I remember that the Mansell brothers were racing with Fortec; it sticks in my mind for some reason. I’m sure we went to Croft again in 2008 when I was with Hitech but then didn’t in 2009 when I’d switched to Carlin and had Daniel Ricciardo as my team-mate. It’s been a good few years!

Tom often brings up the family, and you’ve now got a family of your own after the arrival of Rose. Does that change your approach to things?

MC: Little ones take over your life and it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. She’s good as gold and sleeps right through – so she’s happy and we’re happy!

I’ve had a bit of a career change since I stopped racing in IndyCar, and now I build houses so I spend most of my time behind a desk during the week which frees up time to come and do things like this for fun.

That’s not to say I’m ever ruling out the prospect of something like racing a touring car as I’ve enjoyed going up against some former BTCC guys this weekend, but it’s a super-competitive series that takes up a lot of your time. Tom has done this for years now and hasn’t won the title yet, and I say yet because of the fact that he certainly has the ability to. I think he’s a bit like Ricciardo in F1, where he would have won it already in the right car.

What’s been the big difference in coming to an event like this here at Croft?

MC: I think it’s the freedom you have. If I’m being honest, I think I started to fall out of love with motorsport a little bit over time, because you have all the travelling and are struggling to get into the top ten. You love the bug of fighting for the podium, but the podium I’ve had here was my first one in nine years. People think motorsport is all about trophies, and it is if are in the right car, but often there is a lot of travelling, and a lot of lows for few highs.

Events like this bring the bug back, and when people come up and say hello and want to talk about Goodwood and things like that, it reminds you how friendly the fans are. I also love the British circuits because they are so old school and aren’t like modern-day F1 circuits with a load of run-off; they’re brilliant.

You mention Goodwood there, so let’s talk about the amazing car you took up the hill.

MC: The McMurtry Speirling is the crazy fan car that people said looked like it had been sped up, but the reality is it that it’s an amazing machine that the cameramen struggled to keep up with.

The car generates 2000kg of downforce at zero mph, has 1000bhp and looks like small 1960s F1 car. In a lot of areas, it is quicker than a modern F1 car and you can go out there and buy one yourself as a track hypercar and sample something similar to an F1 car but with little experience. I describe it as being like having a car with a Range Rover on the roof where you can leave the pits on cold tyres, hit the throttle and it will just stick to the ground with no wheelspin.

And of course you broke the record for the Goodwood Hillclimb that had stood for so long.

MC: I first went to Goodwood with my parents back in 1995 when my father got invited to take along one of his cars by Lord March, and I’m sure we were then when the record was set by Nick Heidfeld in the McLaren F1 car. Fast forward to 2022, and we broke it with the McMurtry.

We were there again this year with both cars but I think we’re semi-banned now as I don’t think they want cars going that quickly, and we’re not able to run in the time trial. However, people love seeing the car appear, and Goodwood love it because of how different it is.

Back to the family side of things to finish things off, but you mention your parents, and they have been so supportive of you both...

MC: As I said, I think my love sometimes wanes for motorsport, but there love never will. They are devoted to it and I know they’ll be sad when the day comes that neither of us are racing as it has been their lives for so long.

They have always been our biggest supporters, although whilst dad is a glass half full kind of person who always thinks it will be your year, mum is the kind of person who gets all jumpy in the garage and is then depressed until Tuesday when you have a bad weekend!

Chloe my wife is also very supportive and we’ve been together now for 15 years. When I was racing in F3, she thought motorsport was just a hobby but as I moved up towards Formula 1, she realised it wasn’t and that it just takes over your life.

From a family perspective, it’s amazing to have a podium on the weekend that Rose is here watching, even if she’ll be too young to remember it. Maybe she’s my good luck charm.