With the North Yorkshire circuit of Croft playing host to the midpoint of the season only two weeks ago, the 2019 TCR UK Touring Car Championship will compete in its penultimate race event of the calendar, at Brands Hatch this weekend.

Running alongside the new for 2019 Dunlop Touring Car Trophy, TCR UK will return to the Indy circuit at the Kent-based venue, which saw some exciting action from the 2018 rounds there. As the series nears its completion, the championship battle is a hotly contested affair.

Lewis Kent showed great form two weeks ago by enjoying a maximum point scoring weekend at Croft where he set pole position before going on to record his first two overall wins in the series. Kent leads the Drivers Championship coming into this weekend by two points and will be looking for another good two races on home turf.

James Turkington sits in second place in the Drivers Championship, just two points behind the Essex and Kent Motorsport driver, having adapted well to the Ciceley Motorsport CUPRA TCR. After taking two second-place finishes last time out, the Northern Irishman is well in the hunt and capable of pushing hard for the win.

After enjoying two great races at Croft, Darelle Wilson lies in third place overall in the standings and proved the recent progress made to the Vauxhall Astra was a step in the right direction after taking his first overall podium finish. The former VW Cup racer easily has the pace to replicate this again in the Green Mean Machine this weekend.

Nick Halstead returns to the series after racing at Zandvoort during the Croft event. The Reigning Ginetta GT5 Am champion will be back in the Fox Motorsport Honda Civic FK2, which he debuted back at Donington Park last month. Despite learning the finer points of the FWD TCR car, Halstead held his own and will be out to put in another good performance.

TCT Series Principal Stewart Lines has elected to get back behind the wheel once more as he makes his return to TCR UK, driving the Maximum Motorsport CUPRA TCR that has been driven by Carl Swift, Mark Wakefield and Richard Woods in recent events. Lines will make his return, having taken a podium finish in the final race of the 2018 season at Donington Park.

The Teamwork Huff Motorsport squad has announced that they have pulled the plug on their TCR UK programme after an internal review. The team will be sorely missed with Sunny Wong leaving his mark on the series after two good rounds at the opening Oulton Park event.

In the Touring Car Trophy, regular drivers Alex Day and series leader Henry Neal will once again battle for top honours in the class. Neal has been the most consistent of the TCT runners so far, however, Day is hopeful of a better weekend after being plagued by a misfire

Qualifying will take place on Saturday Afternoon with Race One taking place at 13:55pm, followed by race two at 17:10pm. Both races will be streamed live on the TCR UK Facebook Page and also on the TCR UK Youtube Channel. Both races will run to the standard length of 23 minutes + 1 lap.

Photo Credit: © Jakob Ebrey Photography / TCR UK Touring Car Championship