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Platts Heath’s British Touring Car champion Jake Hill receives prestigious Silver Star at British Racing Drivers’ Club Awards while West Surrey Racing team principal Dick Bennetts collects Colin Chapman Trophy

Jake Hill and his West Surrey Racing team were among the winners at the annual British Racing Drivers’ Club Awards in London.

Platts Heath racer Hill was the recipient of the BRDC’s Silver Star, awarded to the top-performing club member at the highest level of national racing, following his British Touring Car Championship success last year.

West Surrey Racing team principal Dick Bennetts, left, and BTCC champion Jake Hill at the BRDC Awards. Picture: Jakob Ebrey Photography
West Surrey Racing team principal Dick Bennetts, left, and BTCC champion Jake Hill at the BRDC Awards. Picture: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Hill’s 2024 season was one of extraordinary success with eight wins, 16 podium finishes, 26 top-10 results and only one non-finish from 30 starts for WSR-run Laser Tools with MB Motorsport Racing.

His prize came less than 24 hours after readers of Autosport voted Hill National Racing Driver of the Year - putting him on a list of winners including four-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen, McLaren’s 2024 F1 runner-up Lando Norris and rally driver Sebastien Ogier.

“It’s a great honour to receive this award from the BRDC, who do so much for motorsport in this country, not only preserving our biggest event, the British Grand Prix, but in helping young drivers realise their potential and helping to keep the UK firmly at the front of global motorsport,” Hill said.

“As a young driver I benefitted so much from being part of both the BRDC Rising Stars and Superstars programmes and here we are several years on able to come here having achieved my aim of becoming British Touring Car champion and to pick up this award.

“With winning the Autosport National Driver of the Year prize as well it has been an incredible 24 hours.”

Dick Bennetts, meanwhile, who created WSR in 1981 and has overseen countless successes in single-seater and touring car racing, was honoured with the Colin Chapman Trophy.

The trophy, named in honour of the Lotus cars founder, is presented to an individual who has demonstrated great team spirit and comes after a career of more than 50 years in motorsport that began in Bennetts’ native New Zealand and continued when he moved to the UK in 1972 to run great friend David Oxton’s Formula Ford 1600 car.

Major successes with legendary drivers such as Niki Lauda, Keke Rosberg, Bobby Rahal, Eddie Cheever, Stefan Johansson and Brian Redman were the precursor to the establishment of WSR in January 1981 to race in the British Formula 3 Championship.

Winning their debut race set in motion a chain of five WSR titles in 15 years for Jonathan Palmer, Ayrton Senna, Mauricio Gugelmin, Mika Hakkinen and Rubens Barrichello, plus Macau Grand Prix victories for Senna and Gugelmin.

Since 1996 the BTCC has been the team’s home with a record-equalling 132 race victories and 18 outright championship titles.

Bennetts said: “I’m truly humbled to receive this award. The BRDC is one of the world’s oldest motor racing clubs and the list of past winners of the Colin Chapman Trophy is truly extraordinary.

“To stand alongside Jake winning the Silver Star is something I’m not going to forget for a while.”

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