Diagonal Diary: Behind the scenes at Autosport International
Last Friday (January 10), two members of the Diagonal Comms team, Account Executives Gerren Scapens and George Brabner, travelled to the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) for the 2025 edition of Autosport International, Europe’s largest motorsport show, as part of the PR, comms and digital marketing operation for our client, the British Touring Car Championship.
Autosport International annually marks the end of the off-season in the United Kingdom’s motorsport scene and a return to action after the holiday period, bringing together drivers and personnel from across the automotive and motorsport sectors.
This year, the show featured an impressive lineup of high-octane machinery. It was headlined by multiple modern Formula 1 cars, which were on display to celebrate the sport’s 75th anniversary, featured a selection of GT cars, junior single-seaters, prototypes, rally cars, drift cars, bikes, and, piquing our interest, two BTCC cars courtesy of Power Maxed Racing and Un-Limited Motorsport. Nestled in the remaining space of the NEC’s bustling halls were stands from high-profile motorsport brands and bodies, including the British Automobile Racing Club, which owns two circuits that are pillars of the BTCC calendar: Croft and Thruxton. Some of the BTCC’s star drivers – Tom Ingram, Josh Cook, Mikey Doble, Daryl DeLeon, Dan Rowbottom, Chris Smiley, Dexter Patterson, and Max Hall – were also present at Autosport International.
As a result, our team was on the ground to capture social media and video content for the BTCC surrounding the presence of its cars and drivers at the show. Our strategy included the production of engaging, fun, and light-hearted videos with the drivers, professional interviews, photo and video content, and more.
Our team organised and filmed sit-down interviews with all eight BTCC drivers across the day. To ensure the most professional output possible, we curated a high-quality production setup on the morning of the event; it featured one mirrorless Sony camera on a tripod — which produced a sharp image and enabled visual consistency across interviews — and a key light that ensured we were portraying the drivers in a complimentary fashion. The drivers were also armed with a compact RODE microphone to ensure their voices would be captured clearly despite the show’s busy environment without visually distracting the viewer.
We coordinated a busy schedule of interviews, with each driver being given a 30-minute filming slot. During this time, we recorded a long-form interview focused on the 2024 season, the prospects of 2025, and any specific talking points that have arisen since our team last saw the drivers face-to-face at Brands Hatch in October, such as team changes, re-brands, and the introduction of 100% sustainable fuels to the BTCC. This was followed by a series of quickfire questions that were designed to bring the drivers’ engaging personalities to the forefront of the championship’s output, encouraging a greater connection with fans. You can catch one of these short-form videos here. Make sure you head to the comments section to share your opinion…!
In addition, our team planned to distribute the news that Dexter Patterson is teaming up with Un-Limited Motorsport from Autosport International. The Scotsman is the third-youngest driver on the grid, although he is not a stranger to the BTCC – in fact, he competed in the series in 2022 and 2023, the latter year with the Cupra Leon chassis that he will be racing this season. We prepared a press release and social media copy for the announcement prior to landing at the show, however, it offered a brilliant opportunity to produce video content to partner their distribution. We recorded a short reveal video with Patterson and turned it around quickly in the post-production phase, subsequently coordinating its release with our scheduled web story and social media posts, thus maximising the announcement’s reach effectively.
While we continued to conduct interviews throughout the afternoon, we were busy capturing photos and videos for the BTCC’s social media channels. We coordinated live updates from the NEC, providing fans with behind-the-scenes videos, pictures of the BTCC cars, and a look at some of the drivers on Autosport International’s main stage. Some of this content was scheduled for upload over the weekend to ensure there was a steady stream of content going live throughout the show’s duration. We also prepared a social media takeover with Daryl DeLeon, who will be joining the esteemed West Surrey Racing squad this season, which we rolled out on the BTCC’s Instagram the following day.
Once our team had completed the interview schedule, attention turned towards capturing high-quality B-roll of the Autosport International event. This included shots of the drivers engaging with fans, chatting to each other, and being interviewed, clips of Power Maxed Racing and Un-Limited Motorsport’s cars, a wider view of the entire event, and shots of cars from across the TOCA support package, including the Tatuus T-421 that features in British F4, the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB’s Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport, and the Mini JCW that competes in the Mini Challenge UK.
Following the conclusion of Autosport International, our team has been hard at work editing, publishing, and writing content for the BTCC. We have published multiple web stories that share thoughts and feelings of the drivers that were captured at the show, while on the BTCC’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X, you will find our Autosport International roundup short, which includes the highlights from the BTCC’s time at the show, and a selection of short-form cuts of the interviews that we conducted with all eight drivers.
More of these snippets will be published in the coming days, and, on the BTCC YouTube channel, a long-form highlights video will also be heading fans’ ways. Make sure you keep an eye out for those…