Diagonal Diary: A famous photocopier, the BTCC title showdown and GB3 season roundups
Monday 30th September:
For the final time in 2024, it is ‘race week’ for our client, the British Touring Car Championship. The series is heading to Brands Hatch for the season finale this weekend where six drivers (Jake Hill, Tom Ingram, Ash Sutton, Dan Cammish, Josh Cook and Colin Turkington) are in contention for title glory. At the top of the championship table, Hill and Ingram are tied on 365 points, setting up a thrilling head-to-head showdown at one of the most challenging circuits on the BTCC calendar.
As a result, we have a busy week on our hands and we get straight to work publishing content on the BTCC’s website and social media channels to build excitement around one of its closest championship battles in the modern era. Our season finale preview press release goes live, and it is subsequently shared to our extensive list of motorsport media contacts, and we begin rolling out our creative ‘Joker In The Pack’ promotional material, which includes this season finale trailer.
We also publish the final ‘weekend review’ press release of the year for Patrick Heuzenroeder, the 18-year-old Australian driver competing in the GB3 Championship. Pat’s rookie campaign in the series came to a close at Brands Hatch last weekend, scoring an 11th-place finish in Race 2 and a sixth-place result in Race 3, allowing him to secure 12th in the championship standings. If you want to find out more about his performances, you can read all about it on his website now.
Tuesday 1st October
To start the day, the CEO of the BTCC, Alan Gow, visits our City of London office for an interview with our MD, Matt Bishop. Aside from the cheery Diagonal Comms team, Alan is greeted by a professional production setup that includes two cameras, lighting equipment, high-quality microphones, and, of course, a fitting BTCC backdrop that ensures his interview is recorded at the highest of standards. Alan and Matt chat on our sofas for almost an hour, discussing all walks of the BTCC’s current strategies, including its newly-introduced sustainable fuels initiative that debuted at Silverstone two weeks ago, and even a hint of current political affairs.
However, Alan is not our only visitor, as three members of the team working behind the scenes at the Renaissance Foundation, a London-based charity whose mission is to empower young carers and patients to reach their full potential, are also welcomed through our doors. We will be working with them this weekend at Brands Hatch for a charitable activation involving the BTCC, which we are in the final stages of planning.
In the afternoon, we have a meeting with an exciting car manufacturer, and Matt’s latest column for Motorsport Magazine is published. Prompted by an email chain with Patrick Head, one of Formula 1’s greatest engineering masterminds, Matt tells the story of two little-known Euro F3000 rounds and a so-called Sardinia F3 Masters event that was held on the streets of Cagliari, Sardinia, in the early 2000s, which involved current and future Formula 1 stars. He also emotionally recounts the events of one of the most tragic races in motorsport history, the 1967 Gran Premio di Caserta, which was the last street race held on Italian soil before Euro F3000 ventured to Sardinia in 2002, assisted by a translated description made by Clary Regazzoni in his autobiography, E Sempre Questione di Cuore. You can read Matt’s column here.
Wednesday 2nd October
Our client Asetek SimSports teases a mysterious brand-new product on their social media channels. Having announced their new 3rd Party Wheelbase Adaptor last week, it is an exciting period for the Danish sim racing hardware manufacturer, and we can’t wait to see what they are hiding…
In the background, we remain hard at work publishing material for the BTCC in the run-up to the season finale. We continue a series of posts on social media that dives into the performances of each championship contender with today’s focus on Ash Sutton, the NAPA Racing UK driver who dominated the 2023 season and currently lies third, 33 points behind Jake Hill and Tom Ingram. In addition, we release the full 2024 BTCC title contenders artwork package, which includes posters, individual artwork, and more. It is available to view here.
We finish the day with a productive meeting pinning down the exact logistics of our activities at Brands Hatch this weekend. We leave having organised a jam-packed schedule, particularly on Saturday, when we will be producing creative video and photo content for the BTCC and its charitable activation with the Renaissance Foundation.
Thursday 3rd October
We kick off Thursday with the last of our weekend round-up montages from the GB3 season for Patrick Heuzenroeder. The 60-second video is optimised for short-form, vertical social media platforms such as Instagram and YouTube Shorts, and see a mixture of styles working in harmony: it begins with a fast-paced montage, which immerses Pat’s audience in the action at Brands Hatch, before transitioning into a short piece to camera, where Pat gives an insight into the weekend behind the wheel and his opinions on the season as a whole. You can watch our video here, but make sure to keep an eye on his social media channels in the days to come for more creative content…
With the weekend fast approaching, we pull together media briefing documents for various interviews and media engagements that we will be facilitating at Brands Hatch, ensuring our clients are confident and well-prepared for every opportunity they have to share their stories.
The first episode from series two of And Colossally That’s History, the podcast hosted by Matt Bishop and Richard Williams, is published. To kick off the new season, Matt and Richard examine one of Formula 1’s greatest scandals, Spygate, which involved, amongst other things, such as the largest fine in sporting history and the disqualification of McLaren from the 2007 Constructors’ Championship, a famous photocopier. You can listen to it below.
Friday 4th October
Rounding out the week, our dedicated BTCC media team is down on the ground at Brands Hatch. While there is no on-track action today, we are busy editing video content, writing social media posts, and more, while a large portion of our time is occupied by a shoot at a hotel just outside of the circuit with all six championship contenders, who provide our crew with their final thoughts ahead of the season finale.