2008 British Touring Car Championship season

The 2008 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship season was the 51st British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season. It was also the first that the championship was sponsored by HiQ. Fabrizio Giovanardi won his second consecutive title.

After capturing the Drivers and Manufacturers titles in their first season with the Vectra, the Triple 8-run works Vauxhall squad expanded to three cars for 2008. Reigning champion Fabrizio Giovanardi remained on board, being joined by Matt Neal, returning to Vauxhall for the first time since 2002 after leaving his family-run Team Dynamics squad, with whom he won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006. The third car was piloted by Tom Onslow-Cole, who impressed at the wheel of a WSR BMW in his debut BTCC campaign in 2007.

SEAT were once again the only other full-works operation, and fitted their Leons to the rapid yet often unreliable turbo diesel engines being used by the marque's World Touring Car Championship operation. Jason Plato, who came extremely close to securing a second BTCC title the previous year, remained on board, as did GT convert Darren Turner.

Tom Chilton, moving the opposite direction after two years with Vauxhall, replaced the outgoing Neal at Team Dynamics (again running as Team Halfords), with Gordon Shedden remaining on board in the other of their self-developed Honda Civics. As with the previous year, in spite of not being a factory-backed operation, the cars were not eligible for Independents points due to their dominance of the category with the Integra in 2005 and 2006.

West Surrey Racing (again running as Team RAC) campaigned the BMW 320is for a second year, with reigning Independents champion Colin Turkington again heading the team and single-seater convert Stephen Jelley replacing the Vauxhall-bound Onslow-Cole. Mat Jackson returned in his 320is after a successful debut season in 2007, with his small family-run operation now enjoying BMW Dealer Team UK backing.

Motorbase Performance also joined the BMW brigade after ditching their SEAT Toledos, with former Independents champion Rob Collard returned to the series full-time with the team after spending most of 2007 away. He was partnered by Steven Kane, who had been a front-runner for the team in the Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain after making the switch from single-seaters. Also leaving the Toledo behind for 2008 were GR Asia (again running under the Team Air Cool banner), who switched to a newer Leon (which ran with its original petrol engine unlike the works cars) for the returning Adam Jones.

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