ITV has increased its coverage of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship, confirming plans to stream all ten of the season's qualifying sessions online.
Last October, the commercial broadcaster agreed a new three-year deal for BTCC coverage, and announced plans to air the motorsport event in high definition for the first time.
Coverage for the 2011 season will include more than seven hours of live broadcasts from all ten race events on ITV4 and ITV4 HD. A 60-minute race highlights programme will be aired on ITV1.
ITV has today confirmed that it will stream the half-hour qualifying sessions on Saturdays for each race live on ITV.com, in addition to the live streams of all BTCC race days on Sundays. Race highlights will also be made available on catch-up service ITV Player.
Simon Parry, programme editor for ITV Sport, said: "The BTCC provides our audiences with sporting drama of the highest order and what they see on a Sunday is often a direct result of what happens in Saturday's qualifying sessions.
"We were very pleased with the results having experimented with live online coverage of qualifying for last year's finals day fixture so this is a natural progression as ITV.com's sporting content continues to expand and also attract an ever-growing audience. We're delighted to add yet another dimension to our BTCC coverage."
ITV, which has covered the BTCC for 12 consecutive years, said that it will announce broadcast times for the motorsport event on ITV1 and ITV4 shortly.
