Indholdsfortegnelse for 16/08/18 i Autosport

People often moan that there isn’t enough wheel-to-wheel action in Formula 1. Sometimes that’s fair, sometimes not, but either way it’s never something you hear said about the British Touring Car Championship, which is the subject of this week’s special issue. It’s true that the BTCC is not a pure contest, in the sense that it has success ballast and reversed grids, but it rarely fails to deliver dramatic races. Something always happens. As our report on page 24 demonstrates, there was some fine battling at Rockingham last weekend and the series got its 12th winner of the season. The chances of the title fight going down to the Brands Hatch finale (again) are high. The championship recently celebrated its 60th birthday at Snetterton so now seemed like a good…

INDYCAR SERIES Scott Dixon has agreed terms to remain at Chip Ganassi Racing on a new multi-year IndyCar deal, ending speculation that he would switch to the mooted McLaren project, or make a move to Andretti Autosport or Team Penske. The deal keeps the four-time champ and current series leader at Ganassi – where he has scored all but one of his 44 Indycar wins – for an 18th straight year in 2019. After a difficult final IndyCar season with Chevrolet engines in 2016, and a trying year with Honda’s manufacturer aerokit in ’17, Ganassi has been resurgent in the first year of IndyCar’s spec-aerokit era and Dixon (right, above) has won three races. “I’ve always said I have a massive amount of respect for Chip and what he’s done…

This time last year, the Robert Kubica Formula 1 comeback fairytale was gathering momentum. After behind-closed-doors running for Renault, he made his public comeback at the Hungaroring test, and rumours swirled that he was back to his pre-accident best and ready to get back on the grid. Roll on 12 months and, after being passed over by Renault and then getting to the brink of a Williams race seat, only for it to slip through his fingers after testing in Abu Dhabi in November, the Kubica bandwagon has slowed. Today, the 33-year-old Pole is part of the Williams team as test and reserve driver and is a constant presence in the grand prix paddock. But he’s only a bit-part player rather than the star attraction he would have been had…

The balance of power in the title race for the British Touring Car Championship shifted throughout last weekend at Rockingham. A final-race rescue job by the consistent Colin Turkington put him at the top of the pile by just four points in his WSR BMW 125i M Sport, while closest rival Tom Ingram had to perform miracles to keep himself in the hunt in his Speedworks Toyota Avensis after a painful car failure on the final lap of the opening race. Turkington and Ingram came away looking strong for the three-weekend title run-in. But the race-winning headlines were stolen by Adam Morgan in the opening race in his Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes A-Class, Ash Sutton, who leapt up to third in the points in his Team BMR Subaru Levorg, and popular…

Winner’s average speed 104.538mph. Fastest lap Wittmann 1m20.195s, 109.231mph. QUALIFYING 1 1 Juncadella 1m18.069s; 2 Auer 1m18.161s; 3 Rast 1m18.255s; 4 Eng 1m18.257s; 5 Farfus 1m18.365s; 6 Paffett 1m18.398s; 7 Glock 1m18.407s; 8 Mortara 1m18.422s; 9 Wittmann 1m18.443s; 10 Wehrlein 1m18.444s; 11 Frijns 1m18.530s; 12 di Resta 1m18.625s; 13 Muller 1m18.644s; 14 Duval 1m18.695s; 15 Rockenfeller 1m18.746s; 16 Eriksson 1m18.755s; 17 Green 1m18.799s; 18 Spengler 1m19.385s. RACE 2 (40 LAPS – 97.332 MILES) 1 di Resta 56m23.282s; 2 Paffett +1.019s; 3 Rast +1.376s; 4 Wehrlein +11.484s; 5 Wittmann +14.312s; 6 Rockenfeller +14.841s; 7 Eng +17.239s; 8 Auer +17.972s; 9 Juncadella +18.505s; 10 Muller +20.798s; 11 Glock +21.764s; 12 Frijns +22.007s; 13 Eriksson +23.197s; 14 Spengler +31.998s; 15 Green +33.359s; 16 Duval -2 laps; 17 Mortara 37 laps-stopped; R Farfus 18 laps-accident…

MOTOGP RED BULL RING (A) AUGUST 12 ROUND 11/19 Since its return to the MotoGP calendar in 2016, the Red Bull Ring has been Ducati territory. As a result, it wasn’t a major shock to see one of the Italian manufacturer’s riders triumph in Austria last weekend. What was a little more surprising, though, was that Jorge Lorenzo made it three different men in red leathers on the top step of the podium in three years, following in the footsteps of 2016 winner Andrea Iannone and last year’s victor Andrea Dovizioso after getting the better of Marc Marquez in an exhilarating duel. MotoGP has served up plenty of thrillers this season, and in this regard the Austrian Grand Prix was no exception. Although the top three were clearly in a…

GINETTA JUNIOR Ginetta Junior frontrunner Luke Browning says that his exclusion from a race at June’s Oulton Park round has not affected his championship position. Browning finished first on the road in the opening Oulton race, but was disqualified from the results after officials were unable to extract sufficient oil from the differential in parc ferme for scrutineering purposes. Browning’s team Richardson Racing appealed, claiming that a mechanical failure had caused oil to leak, but was told after the recent Snetterton round that the National Court had upheld the initial verdict. Browning feels that had the oil leak that led to the exclusion remained undetected after the first race, and the team not sorted the issue, then he would have suffered a mechanical failure in the second race that weekend,…

CASTLE COMBE BRSCC AUGUST 11-12 Mastering changeable conditions proved to be the key to success at Castle Combe as the British summer promptly ended in Wiltshire with the arrival of wet weather. After a soggy qualifying session, both Civic Cup races were held in the dry as Rob Baker consolidated his lead at the top of the standings with two second places. Jason Ballantyne surged through from fourth on the grid when the lights went out and led on the opening tour, while Baker dropped to sixth from third. As Ballantyne acted as a cork in the bottle, Baker began to make progress and worked his way up to second with three laps remaining, but Ballantyne held on and took his second win of the season. Baker’s performance in the…

MALLORY PARK VSCC AUGUST 11 The Herbert Austin Handicap race at the Vintage Sports-Car Club’s Mallory Park meeting was unusual in that it presented spectators with a full grid of Austin 7-based racing specials for the first time in years. The 10-lap handicap race was the result of two clubs – the 750 Motor Club and the VSCC – joining forces for the day. “The idea of an Austin 7-only race was mooted last year and has now come to fruition,” said 750MC’s Charlie Plain-Jones. “It’s the first time in many, many years that this has been attempted.” The cooperation reflects the shared love for the Austin 7 among those who have raced them, as well as the clubs’ long heritage in historic racing. The car’s heritage is almost unparalleled.…

Few would argue against the assertion that the British Touring Car Championship is the UK’s pre-eminent motorsport series. Recognisable cars, live television coverage, close racing and interesting personalities have helped the BTCC stay at the forefront, and its six decades make it one of the longest-running championships in the country. In this special supplement we celebrate the series’ 60 years by looking back at how it became so popular, highlighting the greatest drivers and getting behind the wheel of some iconic machines. To put together our top 25 drivers list (see page 8) we enlisted the help of a range of experts, including former champions and experienced journalists. Many of the names are predictable, but the order the poll gave created some debate in the office. Please let us know…

Jason Plato has been the most recognisable face in the British Touring Car Championship for two decades, and he has backed up his notoriety J with success. He’s won more races than anyone else, and has taken two championships. He admits that if he were a different type of driver, those statistics would be vastly different. “I don’t settle for second place,” he says. “I could’ve had more titles if I’d changed my attitude, I guess, but I would not have had so many race wins. But that’s just the kind of driver I am.” And it’s that attitude that has kept him at the front for so long. His success, plus his appearances on TV, including the soon-to-be relaunched motoring programme Fifth Gear, have made him the biggest draw.…

Few tin-top images are more iconic than Jim Clark three-wheeling or drifting a Lotus-developed Cortina. A class dominator in the mid-1960s, the 1600cc machine was also capable of taking on the V8 hordes, though it’s probably worth pointing out that the great Clark scored all seven of the Cortina’s outright BTCC victories, so it wasn’t necessarily possible for mere mortals. Even so, the Cortina’s relatively light weight, enthusiastic engine and abusable chassis placed it nicely between the rumbling V8s and diminutive Minis of the era. A European Touring Car title winner in the hands of John Whitmore, the Cortina has also become a pacesetting and popular mainstay in pre-1966 historic tin-top competition. Historic ace Simon Hadfield, who has scored many wins in Cortinas, is a big fan. “It was the…

More than any other car, Ford’s turbo saloon comes to mind when talking about the BTCC’s most spectacular machines. With over 500bhp and limited tyre sizes, the RS500 always had more power than grip, something that tended to get more pronounced as the car voraciously ate its rubber during races. That, along with regular flame-spitting, made the car memorable to watch even if it wasn’t battling wheel to wheel. Having already scored success with the XR4ti and RS Cosworth, Andy Rouse brought the RS500 – complete with a bigger intercooler and twin injectors – to the BTCC at the end of 1987. He took the car’s first series victory at Donington Park in September and the RS500 immediately made all other Class A cars obsolete. No other car would win…

Jim Clark was an important part of the Ford Lotus Cortina’s development. He was keen from the early stages of the project, the keys to which were the work on the twin-cam 1600cc engine done by Lotus boss Colin Chapman and Harry Mundy, and suspension changes over the basic Cortina. Clark first drove a Cortina with a 140bhp race engine in October 1962 and was impressed: “It really surprised me and gave me just about as much of a thrill as a Formula 1 car. On the way to Snetterton for the trials I thought the acceleration was out of this world for a family saloon. “On the circuit for the first time I found the handling a bit odd so we experimented with tyre pressures and shock absorbers to sort…

01 | TYRES Dunlop Dunlop has the sole tyre-supply contract for the championship, and it uses 18-inch rubber all-round. The drivers have to run an ‘option’ tyre at each of the rounds apart from Thruxton, where the demands on the rubber are more specific. The option tyre can be either a harder or softer construction, and over the season drivers can use them a maximum three times in race one of a weekend, three times in race two and three times in race three. This adds an extra element of strategy to the race weekends. 02 | BRAKES AP Racing AP Racing provides the brakes. For a front-wheel-drive car the discs are 362mm x 36mm (front) and 304mm x 10mm (rear). On a rear-wheel-drive car they are 304mm x 25mm…

FORMULA 1 The administrators for the Force India Formula 1 team have accepted a bid from a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll, saving it from a Caterham/Manor-style demise. Force India had been in administration since the Friday before the Hungarian Grand Prix last month, but was returned to solvency after a deal was struck with a Stroll-led group of investors assembled with the help of Force India’s chief operations officer Otmar Szafnauer and the team’s senior management. Its creditors will be paid in full, all 405 jobs at the team have been saved and ongoing funding has been guaranteed. When Caterham and Marussia went into administration at the end of 2014, only Marussia continued, having gained fresh investment under the Manor name. But it was placed in administration again at…

DTM Alex Zanardi covered 294 laps of Vallelunga in his first test of his modified DTM BMW last week, and declared his new hand-operated brake system a huge step forward. The double Indycar champion and ex-Formula 1 driver is using a hand-operated brake for the first time in the M4 DTM, which he will race on a guest outing at Misano next week. Zanardi had previously braked with his prosthetic leg in his other motor racing campaigns since the 2001 Indycar accident in which he lost both legs. “The progress from the previous system to the current one is massive,” said Zanardi. Driving a race car like the BMW M4 DTM is physically very demanding. For me, it would be far more strenuous if I were to continue to brake…

FORMULA 1 McLaren confirmed as Autosport was closing for press that Fernando Alonso will not race in Formula 1 in 2019, bringing to an end months of speculation about his place on the grand prix grid. But what is less clear is exactly what he will be doing in 2019, and whether his absence from the F1 grid will be permanent. The word ‘retire’ was missing from the McLaren statement, and Alonso made it clear that he is keeping the door open to a return to F1 should the team get back to the front. Next year, he is contracted to Toyota (below) to contest the final three rounds of the World Endurance Championship superseason, which leaves capacity for him to return to the Indianapolis 500 in pursuit of the…

Had Robert Kubica’s plan to return to a Formula 1 race seat come to fruition, he’d now be 12 races into his comeback. As it is, the Pole has had to be satisfied with playing an active, but patchy, role in on-track running for Williams with testing and Friday practice outings. Kubica has made two Friday appearances, in Spain and Austria, and completed five test days – one of which was the snow-hit day at the opening pre-season test during which he completed a single lap. That adds up to a grand total of 410 laps. The Williams team rates his pace as perfectly decent, particularly over a stint, and he would unquestionably be capable of racing a grand prix car. But even with the caveat that he was running test programmes…

A COMEBACK THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NEEDED After Audi had beaten Techeetah to the teams’ title by just two points following the season finale in New York, the German manufacturer’s motorsport boss Dieter Gass declared himself “delighted” with the achievement. It was indeed a remarkable recovery from Audi’s position as it left Santiago four months earlier. At that stage it had 12 points thanks to Daniel Abt’s fifth place in Hong Kong – Abt had lost a win to a team error one day later. Lucas di Grassi had failed to score at all – the reigning champion had tangled with old rival Sebastian Buemi on the opening day in Hong Kong, and then endured a plague of reliability problems, chief of which was the inverter issue that forced…

Since he joined the BTC Norlin team in 2017, Chris Smiley has been promising a breakthrough. The Carrickfergus racer, a former Mini Challenge champion, was determined to show the British Touring Car Championship racers what he knew he could do behind the wheel. There were flashes of speed, particularly earlier in this year’s campaign at Donington Park, where he finished second behind Tom Ingram in the second race. But at Rockingham Smiley was on form all weekend. Placing the Honda sixth in qualifying was the leg-up he needed to get the momentum rolling: “In this championship, it’s very hard to make progress if you have a problem in qualifying. Starting in the pack can mean trouble. A lot of this weekend was based on where we started.” While it’s certain…

DTM BRANDS HATCH (GB) AUGUST 11-12 ROUND 6/10 In an era of DTM notorious for inconsistency from one day to the next, one factor – one team – remained constant on the series’ much-anticipated return to Brands Hatch: Mercedes. Mercedes head Ulrich Fritz had been cautious pre-weekend about the “first real unknown” of the season, particularly given that the DTM’s return to the UK after five years would take place on Brands Hatch’s Grand Prix layout for the first time. On a new circuit for the manufacturers and, perhaps more pertinently, many of the drivers, those were valid concerns – especially since Friday’s traditional practice sessions were shoehorned into the start of the schedule on Saturday. But Fritz needn’t have worried. DTM pole positions haven’t quite been like London buses…

HISTORICS Jenson Button will not race in this year’s Goodwood Revival as planned, since no vehicle will be available for him from classic-car dealer JD Classics. It follows the cancelling of Button’s much-anticipated historic debut at the Le Mans Classic in June owing to filming commitments at the British Grand Prix. He was racing a six-wheel Williams against Guy Martin for a Channel 4 documentary, when he had been due to race a Jaguar XJR-9 at Le Mans. Button was also scheduled to appear at Goodwood as part of a two-race programme with JD Classics, but then was not included on the entry list. JD’s regular lead driver Chris Ward has also been withdrawn. JD Classics told Autosport: “The company has decided to change its strategy for the Revival, prioritising…

CLIO CUP The Renault UK Clio Cup has confirmed that it will return to Knockhill in 2019 after a three-season absence. The decision is in line with the views of several teams, which had said they were in favour of a first visit to the Scottish track since 2015. This followed the unveiling of the ’19 British Touring Car calendar with a second Thruxton visit in place of the traditional round at Rockingham. Championship manager Will Fewkes said: “I think it’s something positive for the championship and there’s a very strong market for Renault in Scotland.” The Clio series continues to visit nine of the 10 BTCC meetings, dropping its May date at Thruxton in order to visit the venue on its new date in August. This means there’s a…

BRITISH F4 Arden-run Finn Patrik Pasma took his maiden two Formula 4 wins at Rockingham in a “near perfect” weekend and Johnathan Hoggard claimed his first for four months – but those were not the main stories. Instead, it was all about the rivalry between title contenders Kiern Jewiss and Ayrton Simmons. Simmons got one over the points leader with a brilliant move in the first race. He dived down the inside of Jewiss from miles back at Tarzan to claim fourth. But that proved to be the high point for the JHR Developments driver. In race two Simmons and Seb Priaulx were the innocent victims of a mistake by Jewiss. He had attempted a move down the inside at Deene, but as he tried to back out of it…

Lotus driver Graham Hill suits up in the pitlane ahead of the 1967 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, surrounded by his family: wife Bette, daughters Brigitte and Samantha and son Damon, who appears to be distinctly unimpressed by the proceedings. Hill retired on lap 59 when his Ford Cosworth engine went bang, having twice led a grand prix that would gain legendary status chiefly for the epic nature of team-mate Jim Clark’s recovery charge through the field. Twenty-six years later, Hill Jr would win this race, and again the following season. FOR MORE GREAT PHOTOGRAPHS, VISIT MOTORSPORTIMAGES.COM…

Production saloon racing in the United Kingdom was nothing new, even when the British Saloon Car Championship was created in 1958. The very first saloon-based race was in 1952, but the cars were regularly seen as a lower class in sports and GT races. The machines proved popular with the public, but it wasn’t until the British Racing and Sports Car Club got involved that an official championship was first formed. The organising club’s secretary Ken Gregory was the driving force behind the concept. A trial event was held at the end of 1957, on Boxing Day at Brands Hatch. It was won by Tommy Sopwith driving an Equipe Endeavour 3.4-litre Jaguar. The championship regulations were announced in the second week of January ’58 and the first points-paying race took…

Ford’s Galaxie and then the iconic Mustang started the V8 era, but the Camaro had an impact over a longer period. The first-generation Camaro scored its first win at Croft in 1969 and the final success came courtesy of Stuart Graham at the end of ’75, the Camaro’s 53rd outright victory in the series. After that, the big bangers were banned. Despite the championship’s class system working against it, the Camaro also took an outright title in 1973 with Frank Gardner, the Aussie winning six of the nine rounds. The thunderous big-bore machines brought major spectacle to the front of the grid and their considerable grunt made them tough to beat. “I loved the Camaros and they did well for us,” recalls Graham, still a touring car regular at Goodwood…

Ian Titchmarsh Former BTCC commentator The British Saloon Car Championship race supporting the 1962 British Grand Prix at Aintree was special, partly because it featured two of my favourite touring car drivers – Jack Sears and Michael Parkes – and partly because these two English gentlemen duffed up the pushy, weaving Australian champion Bob Jane in the John Coombs car, and partly because it was at my home circuit. It was also one of Jack’s favourite races. The gap at the flag was 0.2 seconds. Bill McGovern CHAMPION 1970, 1971, 1972 With the Imp you’d corner with the wheel up in the air and you weren’t aware. Then there was a strange feeling and I thought if I could eradicate that I’d be quicker, but it was the front wheel…

DTM Mercedes will be allowed to break the DTM rules for five-time World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier’s series debut at the Red Bull Ring next month, because it does not wish to distract attention from Alex Zanardi’s guest outing at Misano with BMW. HWA Mercedes boss Ulrich Fritz explained that scheduling issues meant Ogier would only have been able to contest next week’s night races at Misano or the Red Bull Ring round. The Austrian event became the logical choice, despite series rules stipulating that guest drivers cannot race in the final three rounds. “There was a very long discussion about it, and I have to say thank you to BMW and Audi who from the beginning said they would support it,” said Fritz. “We are doing these guest starts…

Is money talking too loudly in Formula 1? Lead drivers have had a say over who occupies the other side of the garage for much of F1’s history. This trend gained momentum in the 1980s to the point where it has now become (sadly) commonplace. While it is understandable for a world champion, or potential future world champion, to want/expect the team’s primary energies to be focused in their direction, the Stroll/Force India situation has potential implications for our sport. No disrespect to Lance, but he is far from what any of us would consider a lead driver. While I understand him not wanting to be blown into the weeds by the guy in the opposite cockpit, his father’s money should not be allowed to push the likes of Esteban…

The 2017-18 Formula E season was quite possibly as close as the electric championship is ever going to get to its own Leicester City story. Just like the Foxes back in the 2015-16 Premier League season, this was a tale of a small team that took on the might of much bigger manufacturer squads and won – sort of. With Audi and Renault floundering – as Manchester United and Manchester City did back in Leicester’s celebrated campaign – it was the Techeetah team that rose to prominence. Much like its football equal, for the purpose of this tortured analogy anyway, this was a smaller operation with a budget deficit to the bigger teams that seized its moment and ran with it. The team was even led by its own rough…

CRYSTAL PALACE Sevenoaks & District Motor Club has confirmed that the Crystal Palace sprint will return in 2019 after its enforced cancellation in ’18, and that it will occupy its traditional late May Bank Holiday slot. The club has held the sprint annually since 2010, but this year’s event was called off owing to financial problems caused by a promoter pulling out and difficulties associated with moving the event to the August Bank Holiday weekend. Now the club has committed to running the sprint again next year on May 26-27. It hopes to find sponsorship, but will run the event even if a backer cannot be found. “It’s the love of the event,” said club chairman Chris Judge about the decision. “We’ve put the date in and the logistical work…

RENAULT UK CLIO CUP Fortunes can change very quickly in the Clio Cup. Leaving the previous round at Snetterton, Max Coates looked in control after title rival Paul Rivett’s nightmare. But at Rockingham the roles were reversed and Coates’s lead was slashed from 27 points to just seven. The one element of the Snetterton results that remained the same was Dan Rowbottom winning. As some of the title contenders struggled – Coates tangled with third-placed James Dorlin and Dan Zelos on a chaotic opening lap – Rowbottom was able to capitalise. He was up to second on the opening tour from sixth on the grid, and then passed Jack McCarthy at Deene on lap three of 14 to take the lead. But that wasn’t the end of the matter. Rivett,…

GINETTA GT4 SUPERCUP Twenty points – that was all that separated Suffolk pair Charlie Ladell and Carl Boardley at the top of the Ginetta GT4 Supercup standings heading into Rockingham. And that was all that separated them as the trucks rolled out of Corby too. Losing a win for starting too far forwards in his grid slot was not the way Ladell wanted his race two to go. The 22-year-old made the most of a storming start as team-mate Tom Roche, fresh from cruising to his second win of the season in race one, got a poor getaway as a result of an error with the clutch. Ladell opened up a healthy three-second lead, before being told on lap eight that he had been handed a 10s time penalty for…

It only takes two cars to make a race – that adage was used several times during the Castle Combe meeting and perhaps was most apt for the OSS races, where only nine cars made the trip to Wiltshire after a six-year absence. It was a far cry from the 42 that had taken part in the opening round of the championship on the Silverstone GP layout back in May, or even the 17 and 15 competitors that had made it to the second and third rounds respectively. Nevertheless, each of the three races provided an interesting battle at the front of the field between the Radical PR6 of Josh Smith and MCR Sport of Patrick Sherrington. Smith currently leads the standings and was OSS champion back in 2014 and…

DVD NORTH WEST 200 REVIEW RRP £14.99 The three-week period from the middle of May through to the end of the first week in June is a magical time for bike racing fans. The North West 200 in Ireland, the first big international road race of the year, kicks off an exciting month that culminates with the Isle of Man TT. We wait all year for it to arrive, and in a flash it is over. The post-TT blues can be difficult to shake, even this far down the line. Fortunately, the good people at Duke Video have already started getting this year’s road racing action onto DVD. On offer right now is the official review of the 2018 NW200 and the Top 20 Greatest TT Riders Ever programme. As…

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN? WHO IS THIS? This charismatic journeyman from the City of Light jumped into the fans’ affections during a golden era. After succeeding in a native nursery, he was on the pace in the third level before being fast-tracked to the top. A step back allowed him to shine and even brought him to the Old Man’s attention. As was often the case, that opportunity didn’t happen and instead he lingered in the shadows. At times he looked like he could take on the world, but misfortune usually prevailed. He wheeled his way into an uncompetitive seat, before tragedy presented an opportunity with the best. True to form he flattered to deceive. Two seasons with an ailing giant were followed by a stint with an ambitious minnow.…

As I roll gently down the Brands Hatch pitlane, ready to head out for my first run of the day, I feel like a villain in an early James Bond film. There A are no machine guns lurking in the headlights of this particular Mk1 Jag, but even lacking rocket launchers this car was the weapon of choice in the early days of the BTCC in the late 1950s, and remains one of the top choices if you are a serious ’50s historic tin-top racer today. Everything about this car screams elegance and sophistication on the surface, but underneath the skin lurks the stuff of a seriously potent racing car. I’ve been on the receiving end of one of these big-engined beasts mercilessly thundering past on the Lavant Straight at…

The big Rover V8 crossed the Group 1 and Group A eras, winning in both. After overcoming the Ford Capri, the Rover remained a threat until Ford moved the game forward with turbocharging. The Vitesse won every round in 1983 and rising star Steve Soper would have won the drivers’ crown had he not been disqualified for running adjustable rockers. Andy Rouse – who inherited that crown in his Class B Alfa Romeo GTV6 – made up for that the following year by using a Vitesse to take his third title, as Rovers won nine of the 11 rounds. The Vitesse’s final victory – and class title, with BTCC rookie Tim Harvey – came in 1987. And the car still rates as one of Harvey’s favourites: “I couldn’t have had…

The entire basis of the British Touring Car Championship’s meteoric success was set in stone by the single set of car specifications that came into place in the early 1990s, and they eventually became the Super Touring formula. That exploded as the category was adopted around the world, but motorsport is cyclical and by 2000 the bubble had burst. The early years of the 2000s were defined by a difficult balancing act. The European and World Touring Car Championship opted for Super 2000 regulations, but the BTCC had already gone down its own route of simplified BTC-Touring specifications in 2001. When Alan Gow returned to the helm of the category for his first full season back in 2004, he could see that the writing was on the wall for BTC-T…

‘I COULDN’T SPIN THE WHEELS. THAT IS AMAZING FOR A FRONT-WHEEL-DRIVE CAR – NO TORQUE-STEER’ ALAN GOW BTCC series director Alan Gow got the chance to sample an NGTC-spec car at Snetterton recently, when he got behind the wheel of Rob Austin’s Alfa Romeo Giulietta. The Australian, who has a racing background, took part in a session during the annual tyre test, and admits the experience has given him an interesting new perspective. His first job was to open the book of racing-driver excuses. “I made a mistake by going out on cold, brand new, unscrubbed tyres,” he says. “I had no idea that it had so little grip in the rear. I did two laps and I think I spun at about 10mph because there was no grip. I…