BTCC The Contenders: Adam Morgan

After making the switch back to front wheel drive, Morgan will jump in the Hyundai i30 for the first time in 2025, but the sudden switch comes with a solid background among years of BTCC experience.

After spending the late 90’s to the mid 2000’s racing in karts, racing in all forms of the karting circuit, he would make the jump to cars in 2006. He would drive in the National Historic Rally Championship winning four out of the seven rallies he entered allowing him to finish the season second in class. A couple of years later he would make his debut in the circuit racing scene where he would compete in both the Mazda Championship and the Ginetta G20 Cup. Despite only competing in two rounds of the latter series, he would achieve his first race win at Pembrey.

The following year, Morgan raced in the Ginetta G50 Cup for the final two rounds of the championship, claiming a best finish of fourth which would lead to him staying in the championship for 2010. He would finish on the podium six times that season, claiming a win at Croft meaning he would round out the championship in sixth place.

The following season he would remain in the Ginetta series, now racing in the G55 Supercup. Despite having significantly less race wins then rivals Carl Breeze, Tom Sharp and Nathan Freke, consistency from Morgan took him to the championship having pipped his closest rival by 5 points to win the title, having only three wins to Breeze’s six and Sharp’s nine. This championship would give Adam the opportun9ity to make the step up to the BTCC the following year.

For the 2012 season, he would debut in the Toyota Avensis with Speedworks Motorsport. A difficult start to the season littered with eight retirements in the first twelve races soon picked up by the latter half of the year with him scoring points in eight of the final twelve races allowing him to finish 19th in the standings by seasons end, with a best finish of 8th. But the following year would be a significant improvement on the retirement ridden 2012. 2013 would see him remain in the Avensis but switching to Ciceley Racing. He would show the consistency that he showed in his championship winning G55 campaign a few years earlier. Finishing in all but four races, he would claim points in all those events even scoring a podium at the third Oulton Park race. This would mean he would claim seventh in the overall standings by seasons end. Meanwhile, in the Independents Trophy, he would claim third in the standings with a class win in the opening event at Brands Hatch.

Heading into the 2014 season, Ciceley Racing would make a significant change. The team would change from the old Avensis to a new and self-built Mercedes-Benz A-Class which was made for the NGTC regulations. Morgan would continue to be consistent with the car, claiming top 10’s all throughout the season until the penultimate round of the season where Morgan would take his first race win of his BTCC career. This would give him 10th in the standings by season’s end with once more an excellent showing of consistency.

The next season, Morgan would better his results now claiming his second race win in the third race at the Thruxton round and a further six podiums by seasons end. On top of this he was the only driver that competed in all thirty races that season to be classified, having only finished outside of the points in three of the races. He would round out the season in 7th place in the overall standings and 3rd in the Independents Trophy having his most successful season to date.

2016 would be a continuation from the year prior, he would end the opening round at Brands Hatch with a race win before following it up with another win at Thruxton followed by two more podiums that same day. A second place later on in the year at Silverstone meant he would claim ninth by seasons end and once more a lot of points paying finishes and his first multi-win season.

However, 2017 would be his first season since he started driving the Mercedes that he would go winless but to say it was an underwhelming year for Morgan would not tell the full story, The opening round of the season would see him take a podium before going on a consistent run of points paying finishes across the first nine races of the year which would see him take another podium at Donighton Park. He would take another two podiums that season with one at Rockingham and Silverstone but a mid-season struggle with multiple retirements and only a handful of points dropped him down to 10th in the standings.

The next year would give Morgan his most wins in a season with three wins taken throughout the year. Another three second places on top of this plus a number of consistent points scoring weekends would see the Mercedes driver reclaim the seventh place in the standings spot for a third time in six years. This would also give him fourth in the Independents trophy finishing behind future teammates Ingram and Chilton.

Morgan would continue to claim points finishes and a few podiums in 2019 but would be unable to add another win to his tally and with the competition of the BTCC growing stronger at the front, he would finish the season 12th in the standings, his first season outside of the top 10 in the championship since his debut year in 2012. The next season would be his last in the Mercedes having competed with in it for the last seven years, but he wouldn’t go down easy. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the championship was condensed down into a three-and-a-half-month period. Morgan would once more be one of the most consistent drivers on the grid, claiming points in all the races he finished in and taking one last victory in the A-Class at Oulton Park. A further two podiums by Morgan would allow him to finish eighth in the standings only six points off his future teammate, Jake Hill.

2021 would see Morgan move to driving the rear-wheel-drive BMW but remaining with Ciceley Motorsport. A solid first two thirds of the year would show that Morgan got into the swing of the BMW quite nicely with him claiming two wins and a further two podiums showed him to be adaptable to both front and rear wheel drive. 2022 would once more show Morgan’s consistency. Claiming solid points paying finishes all year, finishing half the season in the top 10 and claiming his eleventh and final win at the final race in the Thruxton round. Another podium later in the season at Silverstone would leave Morgan ninth in the standings by the end of the year.

2023 Morgan would stay in the BMW but made the switch to the manufacturer entry with WSR. He would once more put himself in a top 10 position in the standings having doubled his podium count from the previous year despite going winless finishing ahead of teammate Stephen Jelley and former, and soon to be once again, teammate Tom Chilton.

Last season he stayed with WSR but was winless once more and only claimed a single podium all year. He struggled at times to keep pace with teammates Turkington and Hill who were fighting for the title all year with thirteen wins between them. But, Morgan once more demonstrated consistency as he would claim top 10’s for the most part of the year and only finished a handful of points behind Independents Champion Árón Taylor-Smith.

Heading into 2025, Morgan will move back to the front-wheel drive cars as he takes on his next campaign with Hyundai and Team Vertu where he looks to end this winless period. But with teammates like Ingram and Chilton, the time to adjust and get the ball rolling will be minimal.