Charlotte Birch wraps-up Milltek Civic Cup season at Brands Hatch

Charlotte Birch completed her season in the Milltek Civic Cup following a challenging weekend in the season finale at Brands Hatch, where she fought through technical issues that limited her running in qualifying, nevertheless displaying good pace to end an otherwise 2025 campaign full of promise as she took a step forward in performance across the season.

Photo credits: JEP

Charlotte Birch completed her season in the Milltek Civic Cup following a challenging weekend in the season finale at Brands Hatch. After technical issues limited her running in qualifying, Birch displayed good pace in race one as she finished in 21^st position.

A points-scoring finish looked to be on the cards in race two before the SVG Motorsport driver was forced to retire from the race in the early stages.

Nonetheless, Birch enjoyed a positive season in the one-make championship where she pushed closer to the top-10 and developed her racecraft.

Birch has enjoyed a consistent 2025 season as she embarked on a full-season program in the Milltek Civic Cup. Regularly contending for points scoring finishes, Birch was now looking to break into the overall top-10 to end her campaign on a high. Racing with SVG Motorsport, Charlotte has finished inside the points on six occasions, with five of those results coming across the previous three events of the year.

Birch now returned to the Brands Hatch Indy circuit for her second visit of the season looking to build upon her previous experience. In round two of the campaign, the drivers experienced dry conditions across the weekend with Charlotte showing excellent speed over one-lap in particular. After qualifying in 13^th, Birch achieved a best result of 15^th during the event and she was now looking to improve on this performance to close-out the campaign. 

Qualifying took place on Saturday morning with the track predominantly dry at Brands Hatch, albeit with cool ambient temperatures. After completing her first lap out of the pits, Birch suffered a technical issue and therefore she was unable to set a representative time. As a result, Charlotte was looking to execute a strong recovery drive from 26^th on the grid in the first of two races. 

Photo credits: JEP

Race one at Brands Hatch was held on Saturday afternoon and following good work from the SVG Motorsport team, Birch took her position at the rear of the grid. Charlotte made a clean start and gained two spots on the first lap to move into 24^th position as she looked to push towards the points scoring places.

On lap two, Jack Ruddell spun and this elevated Birch into 23^rd position with Ruddell rejoining just behind. On the following lap, Ruddell moved back ahead while both drivers overtook Anthony Gannon. As Gannon slowed, Birch was delayed, however she was now aiming to follow Ruddell through the field. 

On lap five, Birch moved into 22^nd spot as Joshua Turnbull pitted with a technical issue and now the race settled into a rhythm. Birch continued to improve her lap times until a recovering Ben Bateman overtook the SVG Motorsport racer on lap eight. Nonetheless, Charlotte responded and set a new fastest lap of a 54.691 before improving further on lap 10. After clocking a time of a 54.365, Birch was now faster than her quickest race lap from the earlier meeting of the season.

Now showing pace to rival those inside the top-10, Birch was looking to make up positions in the second half of the contest. However, on lap 11, contact between Graham Ross and William Butt at Paddock Hill Bend saw Ross roll and this resulted in the safety car being deployed. With his Honda Civic FN2 buried deep in the gravel trap, the race was red flagged with four minutes remaining and was subsequently not restarted. As a result, Birch was classified in 22^nd position at the end of race one after a character building first day at Brands Hatch. 

Photo credits: JEP

The season finale took place on Sunday afternoon with the grid positions based upon the results of race one with a partial reversal at the head of the field. Following a grid penalty for a driver ahead, Birch started from 21^st position and the SVG Motorsport racer was targeting a push towards the points-paying places.

It was a clean start for Birch as she completed lap one in 20^th position as she got stuck into a good midfield battle. As Charlotte was looking to gain further ground, she pulled into the pits at the conclusion of the second lap with a technical issue. It was an unfortunate end to the campaign for Birch who had the chance to score a career best result following a high level of attrition in the season finale.

Despite a tough end to the year, Birch’s 2025 campaign was full of promise as she took a step forward in performance across the season. After coming narrowly close to a maiden top-10 result earlier in the campaign, Birch should be encouraged by her speed heading into the off-season as she looks to continue her progress in the Milltek Civic Cup.