By Mick Palmer

The rumour mill can stop now. 2023 TCR UK champion Carl Boardley is returning to the series to defend his title this season, meaning any talk of a BTCC return can be finally be binned.

As the owner of an NGTC Cupra Leon and a TBL (both used by the now defunct Team HARD in 2023) there were stories circulating that a return to that championship was a formality, but in mid-January Boardley told Touring Car Magazine that running in the BTCC was ‘behind him,’ and he publicly confirmed at the Autosport Show that he’d effectively pulled the trigger on a second season by stating: “The idea is we’ll probably be back to defend the title, but it’s not 100%.”

After keeping his cards close to his chest over the winter over his plans for this year, it will have come as a pleasing relief for series boss Stewart Lines for Boardley to commit to the TCR UK package once again. Lines said the reigning champion had “many options for 2024,” but after some negotiations he’d be “back on track and defending his title.”

Initially the first plan was to get the TCR World Finals in Portimao out of the way for Boardley and his team (Hart GT with CBM) in his Cupra Leon Competición TCR machine, before organisers WSC cancelled the event. The late February/early March face-off will now be amalgamated with the 2024 qualifying procedure for the Finals later this year. This has opened an uninterrupted path for a chance to defend the crown he took last season with four wins (which should have been more excepting for some inconsistent stewarding surrounding track limits,) and means that challengers now have an official barometer to set their sights on.

In a press release from the championship Boardley was quoted: “Having experienced TCR UK for the first time in 2023 and being new to the Championship and it’s surroundings I have only glowing things to say. I came into TCR hoping to gain back my enthusiasm and enjoyment for racing, and of course to be competitive from the outset.”

“After a slightly ‘rocky’ start I took the bull by the horns off track and after teaming up with Nick Hart managed to get all the finer points in place preparation-wise to enable me to do what was required on track.

“To return for 2024 was a fairly straightforward decision from my part. With no time for any testing (other than the race weekends) in 2023 and having now gained a lot of data from last year we’ll be looking to raise the bar as I believe we can unlock a lot more from the car and continue from where we left off.”

Earlier this year in conversation about 2023 the Suffolk racer said: “We did really well. I didn’t expect to come in and do as well as we did after having a year out, but we came in and enjoyed it and never looked back. The start of the year at Snetterton, we really really struggled with a different team and it was quite clear at that point we needed to make a change. I spoke to Nick Hart (Hart GT) and twisted his arm and said we need help here otherwise I’m going to have to stick it on the backburner. He turned up for Croft and we stuck it on the front row.”

With the exit of 2022 champion Chris Smiley back to the BTCC the legitimacy of the series is now reinforced with Boardley choosing to return. With a bit more than handful of drivers confirmed for this season, another handful ready to finalise deals, and more racers close to taking the plunge, behind closed doors the series looks just as healthy as it did in 2023. The combination of those pieces of the puzzle coming together also serves to put pressure on drivers sitting on the fence about their 2024 prospects to act a little quicker as the number of legitimate championship challenging options in terms of cars and teams begins to shrink.

Boardley carried the number 1 on his car at the Birmingham NEC last month and will now find that the number will also carry a target for this year. Teams and drivers will have taken note of the back to basics, race first, attitude that the team took to the track with last season. They’ll also note that the considered contact and ‘clever’ elbows out across a year that led to the title is the style that is now required as TCR UK in 2023 became more of a ‘proper’ contact Touring Car series. It’s a style of racing that Boardley admitted on numerous occasions last year that he enjoyed, and for those with an eye on preventing him taking a second title in 2024 there has to be an acceptance that door-to-door physical competition will be a de facto setting for the upcoming campaign.