A record crowd of 35,000 attended the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch to see Colin Turkington crowned champion - the biggest crowd for a BTCC event since MotorSport Vision took over the Kent circuit in 2004.

As well as Turkington taking the title, the bumper crowd witnessed the closest finish in series history in race one – with Jason Plato taking the win from Tom Chilton by just 0.015secs – while Plato also became only the second driver to secure three wins on a single race day.

For Turkington and West Surrey Racing, it was a maiden BTCC title, and MSV chief executive Jonathan Palmer admitted it had been a stunning weekend for fans.

"It's absolutely wonderful to see such great racing, with the title chase going down not only to the last round but to the very last race; the drama in the final race was phenomenal!” he said. "I'm absolutely delighted that Colin has won the championship: his drive today was quite superb under heavy pressure. Of course he couldn't have done it without a great team and a great car, and I am thrilled to see West Surrey Racing take the drivers' title. WSR is a very special team to me as I won the British F3 Championship with them in 1981. My win in British F3 was the start of the team and their success today is a great tribute to team principal Dick Bennetts.

"The BMW 320si is obviously a fantastic base for a race car and championship successes in the FIA World Touring Car Championship have now been backed up by a British Touring Car drivers' title, which is very well deserved.

"I'd like to congratulate BTCC Series Director Alan Gow and Dennis Carter at the BARC for evolving the championship into such an outstanding package of entertainment for the fans. It was fantastic to see so many spectators at Brands Hatch today - the circuit really was heaving!

"I'm also very proud of the job our team at Brands Hatch has done, as the circuit has never looked better."