MOTORSPORT star Rory Butcher will be able to complete the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship after it was given the Government's green light.

The final race weekend of the 2020 season will take place next weekend – November 14-15 – at Brands Hatch, Kent, despite a four-week national lockdown in England taking effect from today (Thursday).

Elite sport will be able to continue south of the border during that time and TOCA, the series organiser, have received confirmation from Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Oliver Dowden, that the BTCC falls within that category.

It means that Butcher, 33, will take to the grid in the battle for the final points of the year in rounds 25, 26 and 27, with a top-three championship finish still within his reach.

The Fifer, whose father, Derek, is the CEO and owner of Knockhill Racing Circuit, is fifth in the drivers' standings after the penultimate race weekend at Snetterton – over October 24-25 – in which he accumulated two fourth-place and one fifth-place finishes.

The event also included a one-off qualifying format – the 'Top Ten Showdown' – which gave drivers a marginally-reduced window of 25 minutes from the usual 30 to record their lap times, with the 10 fastest competitors then progressing to a 10-minute pole position session to determine the top 10 places on the grid.

Butcher ended that in fourth spot and that was the position he held after taking the chequered flag in race one, holding off fellow title contenders Ash Sutton and Dam Cammish as Colin Turkington, Tom Ingram and Jake Hill claimed the podium places.

In race two, the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus of Butcher again placed fourth but not after a close battle for second and third with Ingram and Sutton.

He nibbled at Ingram’s Toyota Corolla several times, with a significant effort made on the final lap, where he out-braked himself at Wilson, leading to contact.

That enabled Sutton’s Infiniti Q50 to join the fray, crossing the line third behind Ingram, and although Butcher suffered a hit from Cammish at the final turn, he managed to again finish in fourth.

There was further drama to come in the final race as he crashed into Ingram at the last corner.

The Speedworks Motorsport driver had been reeling Butcher in during the latter stages and, after he made his move on the final lap, initial contact was made through the right-hand Coram curve.

It sent Butcher across the grass and, after returning to the track, he then slammed into Ingram at the final corner before placing fifth.

"I really hate being involved in incidents. It just doesn’t sit well with me," he said afterwards.

"I love to race hard, I love door-to-door racing, but when you end up going across the grass and hitting one of your competitors, it’s a horrible feeling. Tom should have come out of that corner and taken that podium. It’s a shame.

"Overall, we’ve been strong, I don’t think we’ve made the most of what we had in front of us; we should have had two podiums at least I think. But there’s lots of positives that we’ve got to take from that, the fact that we were so pacy and potentially could have fought for pole."

The 2020 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship will conclude at Brands Hatch Indy and will be live on ITV4.