Alan Gow: Hydrogen, not electric more likely for BTCC in the long-term

British Touring Car Championship boss Alan Gow insists that the decision to switch to a 100 per cent sustainable fuel for the 2025 season promises to be a ‘great feather in our cap’ and has suggested that hydrogen – rather than electric – could provide a long-term fuel of the future for the series.

The BTCC will become the first major touring car series in the world to switch to a fully sustainable fuel following a successful test that took place across the final two rounds of the 2024 season, with the Un-Limited Motorsport Cupra Leon of Daryl DeLeon running on the new fuel at both Silverstone and Brands Hatch.

The decision to introduce the fuel comes at the same time as the BTCC brings an end to the hybrid system after three years, and marks another ‘first’ for a championship long known for taking a lead when it comes to developing new technologies.

“Going back to the early 90s, we were the first touring car championship to introduce catalytic converters to the cars because we needed to be relevant,” Gow explained in a video interview with Diagonal Comms, the agency behind the BTCC’s media output.

“Through the history of the BTCC, if you only look at fuels, then we have had cars running on bio-fuels, we’ve had cars running on LPG and we’ve had diesels, and we are probably the only championship that has experimented with all those things and allowed those cars to race as a demonstration of what different fuels can do within motorsport.

“I’m proud of the fact that over the last 30-odd years, we’ve been at the forefront of that and if we can now become the first major touring car championship in the world to have a 100% sustainable fuel – and by that I mean a proper sustainable fuel and not just one where some ethanol has been chucked into the mix – then it will be a great feather in our cap.”

Alongside on-track testing in the Cupra, the new fuel – developed by Haltermann Carless and designated as Hiperflo ECO102 R100 – has successfully undergone dyno testing with Mountune, Neil Brown and Swindon, the three other engine builders currently active in the series alongside M-Sport.

With ‘no issues with performance or reliability’ the fuel will be rolled out to all the competing cars for 2025 as the series looks to improve sustainability at a time of huge uncertainty across the wider automotive industry in the UK.

Vauxhall’s decision to close its van-making plant in Luton has been partly blamed on the zero-emission vehicle mandate that states that a certain percentage of new cars sold by a manufacturer in the UK must be zero-emission, with the potential for large fines for those who fail to meet the targets.

Manufacturers are largely working to try and reach the targets set through the switch to electric vehicles, with Jaguar for one having already stopped production of petrol and diesel powered cars to go to a full EV line-up from 2025.

Others are set to follow suit in the coming years despite the ban on the sale of petrol cars being pushed back, although concerns remain with plenty of consumers about whether the UK has the infrastructure to deal with a rapid increase in the number of electric cars on the road.

At the same time, alternatives are limited with hydrogen vehicles like the Hyundai Nexo and Toyota Mirai not currently available to order in the UK, and Dacia the only manufacturer to offer new cars running on LPG – and even then with a bi-fuel engine that runs on both LPG and petrol.

It is these ‘other’ alternatives however that could be utilised in motorsport going forwards, with Toyota having run a hydrogen-powered car in 24 hour races in Japan, and both the World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24 Hours looking to introduce a hydrogen class in future.

Extreme H is also set to launch in 2025, ironically as a replacement for Extreme E, and it is likely that hydrogen rather than electric will have a part to play in the BTCC going forwards.

“If we went down the political route then we would all be in EVs, which are proving to not be the answer,” Gow said. “EVs have a very limited value within motorsport and there has been little take-up as we know that they don’t last long and they are very heavy, and I think hydrogen is probably going to be the next big thing – either through a hydrogen fuel cell attached to an EV motor or attached to an internal combustion engine.

“We will happily open the doors to a hydrogen development within out championship and I think we’ll probably have a hydrogen element within the BTCC in the next two to three years. It may only be a couple of cars running as a development exercise and I can’t imagine that the whole field would swap over but you can see it starting to creep in in other classes like Le Mans.

“If you said to me 15 years ago, ‘you’ll be running hybrids’ or ‘you’ll be running 100% sustainable fuel’ and ‘you’ll possibly be talking about hydrogen’, then I’d have told you to go and have a cup of tea and a good lie down.

“Whatever route we go down [eventually], we’ll never introduce an element that takes away from the short, sharp exciting racing you get in the BTCC. Certainly in the foreseeable future, for the next five years or so, a more fuel-efficient internal combustion engine with a 100% sustainable fuel is the way forwards.”