Brands Hatch Winter Stages

Photographing the 2026 Circuit Rally Championship Brands Hatch Winter Stages

The Brands Hatch Winter Stages has been a regular fixture in the diary in recent years. It comes halfway through the Circuit Rally Championship and provides a good chance for some early new year motorsport photography. Here’s flavour of the action from recent years –

As you can see from the venue map and sample stage map, both available on the Brands Hatch website. The action was almost entirely concentrated on the Indy Circuit with some use of the main paddock and pit lane. That makes it all smooth tarmac – in theory at least if you kept it on the grey suff.

Druids

The venue map showed that some of the spectator area around Druids was out of bounds, although car parking was still allowed. It soon became clear that there are major works on the fence there to a height similar to that at Paddock. It is still work in progress, so it isn’t possible to see where the lower spectator fence will be and whether it will be close enough to shoot through the fence there when completed. Detailed images of the new fence can be found in our Brands Hatch Photographic Guide.

With the reduction in the stage route – there was no use of the lower paddock with the yump or the rally stages beyond that – and the new fencing, if Brands were not a good place to catch up with some photographer friends who live “south of the river”, my future visits to this event may be treated less enthusiastically. However, the decent entry of top class cars and the large crowd in attendance suggests the event is attractive for many.

In an interesting change to recent practice, the morning stages were run the right way round the circuit. The somewhat damp circuit provided some good action out of Druids, especially from the rear wheel drive Escorts and sole Vauxhall Chevette HSR driven by Alasdair Stables and Neil Jones.

Taking Paddock the right way proved too challenging for some – no names, no pack drill, but these two blue oval crews had a very short day. Recovery seemed to take an age.

A couple of iconic liveries were present – the Lancia Delta HF Integrale 16V driven by Richard Malpass and Christian Brown only managed one stage. Joshua Tatchell and Ian Tatchell in the Vauxhall Astra completed the rally.

Clearways

Time then to move on to Clearways in the area with no fence. The sun came out briefly; indeed, the whole day whilst cool was pleasant enough. Our view was of Cone City …

The tight left from the grand prix loop at Surtees proved to be challenging for some 

Moving further round Clearways there is a shot through the fence in both directions, albeit with cones to dodge on the head on shot.

With the stages using various routes near pit in there is a head on shot through the fence.

Paddock Hill Bend from Druids

The lunch break allowed the organising team to reverse the stages for the afternoon. Now the cars were coming up Paddock Hill Bend from Druids. The grandstand there was open and a decent number of people were taking advantage of the panoramic views of most of the Indy Circuit and thus the stage. Of more interest to me was the shot of the cars coming up the hill.

The Escorts didn’t let us down! Also of note was Mick Johnson – from MGJ Engineering who have enthusiastically supported this event for a number of years.

Graham Hill Bend

Returning to the area inside of Druids, allowed for a shot back to Graham Hill Bend.

Alternatively looking across to Paddock Hill through the trees.

The beauty of the competitors doing multiple laps of the track is that from time to time we get some rally racing. There was also the merest hint of a sunset.

There’s also a shooting spot I had not tried before …

Druids

For the final stage, as darkness descended, I ended the day at Druids in the fence free gap with the cars heading towards me.

PistonClick are planning to be at the next Circuit Rally Championship round at Snetterton on the 7th February and, a first time for me, the Anglesey event at the beginning of March. Please pray for good weather!

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