Rockingham review

It was a mixed bag at Rockingham for a number of reasons this season, with the weather changing constantly across the weekend which lead to dramas for the teams when it came down to tyre choices, and a couple of shock results which really helped to shake up the championship standings once again.

The MG duo of Jason Plato and Sam Tordoff dominated qualifying, with Tordoff battling out for pole position with the Audi of Rob Austin, who had to settle for third after a superb lap from Plato locked out the front row for MG KX Momentum Racing.

The conditions for the first race of the day were far from perfect as far as MG were concerned, and a damp track seen the pair drop into the pack, Plato finishing 5th and Tordoff a dismal 16th. Title challenger Andrew Jordan took full advantage of MG's falterings, as he claimed his fifth win of the season. Rob Austin just snatched 3rd after a last ditch move on the home straight against reigning champion Gordon Shedden, while Airwaves Racing's Mat Jackson finished 2nd in a strong showing for the Motorbase Ford Focus.

With similar conditions for the second race, it was the rear wheel drive Audi of Rob Austin that got the best getaway, as he lead from the first corner and managed to hold on quite comfortably to take his first ever win in the BTCC, and showed once more what he and his team are capable of doing in the right conditions and settings. Gordon Shedden claimed another podium finish in 2nd, while Colin Turkington kept his brief championship hopes alive by taking third, another rear wheel drive car showing its prowess around the Rockingham track.

The final race of the day saw Andrew Jordan take another win, which enabled him to stretch out his championship lead to over 30 points heading towards the penultimate round at Silverstone. Colin Turkington took 2nd place, showing once more the progress eBay Motors have made with the new BMW 1 series and that the Irishman still wants to fight for the title. Jason Plato completed the podium, though the result was enough for the MG driver to officially rule himself out of this year's title race.

After the three rounds at Rockingham, Andrew Jordan continues to lead the championship, thirty points ahead of the current defending champion Gordon Shedden. Colin Turkington maintains third spot, three points behind Shedden and is still within a strong shout of the title. After a fairly quiet weekend, Matt Neal drops to fourth in the standings, who is just one point behind Turkington. Plato is fifth in the standings and has ruled himself out of the title race due to the 62 point gap between himself and Jordan.

Photo credit: Phil Laughton Photography

Turkington closes the gap

Ebay Motors driver Colin Turkington showed his prowess in the BMW 125i once again at Knockhill in the latest round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

The 2009 champion qualified 2nd for the first race of the day, behind the incredibly quick Audi of Rob Austin, and managed to squeeze past the Wix Racing driver to take the top spot of the podium in race 1, a feat he repeated in race 2, sharing the podium with Austin, who took a 3rd and 2nd place respectively, and Knockhill's very own Gordon Shedden.

These results meant that Turkington closed the gap at the top to 30 points - although he had scored a 4th place finish in race 3, but was later disqualified due to a technical infringement. Despite this though, the former champion is showing that the car is very strong in his hands, and with 9 races still to go, there's every chance that the Northern Irishman could make a last ditch title challenge.

Aside from Turkington's dominance in Scotland, it was a fairly quit weekend for the Honda Yuasa Racing duo. As mentioned before, local hero Shedden scored two podium finishes, but his weekend came to an abrupt halt in the final race of the day after his Honda Civic caught fire. Shedden's team mate and current championship leader Matt Neal also had a relatively quiet weekend, finishing within the top 10 in the first two races and taking a 2nd place finish in race 3.

The MG KX Momentum Racing team also had a fairly fruitless weekend, with neither Jason Plato nor Sam Tordoff scoring many points over the course of the weekend, something which later lead to Plato writing off his title chances for this year. Don't discount him yet though, Plato is renowned for making late comebacks, and he is still mathematically within a shout of clinching the drivers crown yet.

Andrew Jordan's win in the final race of the day kept him firmly up towards the top of the championship, with the gap between him and Neal being just 6 points - no doubt that AJ has certainly got his eyes on the driver's crown too.

With nine rounds left of the BTCC, there is still plenty of time for things to change in terms of the standings. The drivers know that all too well, and I'm sure they will be doing all they can to rack up as many points as possible towards the closing stages of the season.

Photo credit: Phil Laughton Photography

Snetterton review

After a six week summer break, the BTCC returned, quite literally, with a bang at Snetterton. As usual, it was a long wait for the fans, but fortunately there were a number of test sessions that occurred over the summer break, including a two day event at Snetterton, which made the wait slightly more bearable. With the amount of testing that has happened over the six weeks, then it was likely to see a number of improvements for some teams and cars by the time the action returned to the track, and indeed there were some significant improvements.

MG have shown that they have a much better car than they did during their maiden campaign last season, and their prowess shown again during qualifying, where they secured another front row lock out, with Tordoff taking his first pole position of the year, Plato behind him on the front row and reigning champ Shedden qualifying 3rd. The only other real surprises from qualifying was Aron Smith taking a career best qualifying result, putting him 6th on the grid, and Matt Neal qualifying outside the top 10.

Race one didn't really produce much action, with the top three drivers finishing in the same places as their start positions, resulting in Tordoff taking his first ever BTCC win. Aron Smith scored a strong 6th place finish, a good result for the Motorbase squad who have struggled to get the Focus up the grid so far this term. Neal managed to climb up into the top ten, finishing 9th and therefore allowing him to run ballast free in the second race.

Race two was much more action packed, as any good touring car race should be. Jordan took another win, after controversial contact with Colin Turkington, who was leading the race but then dropped down to 6th at the end of the race. Matt Neal used his ballast free car to full advantage to climb up to second, while Aron Smith also improved from sixth on the grid to take his and Motorbase's first podium finish of the season. It was a dismal race for Plato, who had to retire due to engine issues.

The final race of the day was just as frantic, with incidents happening left right and centre for the duration of the round. It all started on the opening lap, where a tussle between Newsham and Neal saw both cars spin off, but the pair did manage to rejoin the race. In a separate incident on the same corner, there was contact between Will Bratt and Plato, with the MG driver being sent into the barriers before the car rebounded and rolled, putting Plato out of the race for the second time during the weekend. The other big incident involved Turkington again, as the Irishman had a coming together with Shedden, which resulted in the eBay driver dropping down the order again, with Shedden taking the win and Motorbase duo Mat Jackson and Aron Smith making up the rest of the podium to sum up a spectacular weekend for Dave Bartrum's team.

With not long to go now until Knockhill, the drivers will be eager to get out on track once more, and hopefully we will see three more action packed rounds.

Photo credit: Phil Laughton Photography

Where are they now? - 2011 drivers

In this next addition to my blog, I will be looking at the drivers who left the series in 2011 and finding out what they are up to nowadays outside the BTCC.

Of course, at the end of 2011, a number of the drivers who featured in the BTCC stepped up to the world stage of touring car racing. Team Aon opted out of the series to run their global Ford Focus in the WTCC with Tom Chilton being partnered with James Nash. STR and Tom Boardman also followed suit, as did former Silverline driver Alex Macdowall. The reasons why these drivers moved up to the WTCC isn't something I know personally, but all of them have had varied success so far in their WTCC campaigns.

There are other drivers that left the series, but didn't make the jump up to the World Series. Two of the biggest departures of the series were Go Mobile drivers Paul O'Neill and John George, after the team were unable to put a package together for the 2012 season. As the avid BTCC viewer will know, Paul O'Neill is now currently working for ITV4 and hopefully we will see him out on track again very soon. His former team mate John George is also currently out of a drive, and it will be interesting to see if he will make a return to the series in the future.

Another driver that seems to have disappeared from the racing scene is young Chris Swanwick, who partnered Rob Austin in the Audi at Brands Hatch and Silverstone in the final two rounds of the 2011 season. After his brief outing in the BTCC, Chris has struggled with a lack of budget and hasn't been out on track since.

The only other driver that has left the BTCC after the 2011 season is Martin Byford, who was drafted in for the second half of the season by the AmD Milltek squad. After the shock departure of Tom Onslow-Cole, Martin did a good job of filling in the driver's seat of the VW Golf. After he was unable to fund a return to the BTCC, Byford confirmed that he would be competing in the British GT Championship in a Lotus Evora, but he has not ruled out a return to the BTCC, as it all depends on if he can get the required budget.

Photo credit: Phil Laughton Photography

Where are they now? - 2010 drivers

As the BTCC moves on each year, the series sees a number of drivers come into and leave the BTCC. Some move on into pastures new, with many of the ex stars of the BTCC moving up to the World Touring Car Championship, or some of the drivers may leave the series due to other factors such as budgetary issues.

I've been following the BTCC since 2010 and in the short time that I've been a viewer, I have seen numerous drivers leave the series. Of course, some of them have moved up to WTCC, but there are others which seem to have disappeared off the map so to speak. Let's start with the drivers that left the series after the end of the 2010 season.

First up, and pictured in this article, is David Pinkney, who's last BTCC outing actually saw him driving the first NGTC Audi A4 of Rob Austin Racing in 2011. However, that was only a demonstration lap at Brands Hatch. The last time Pinkney was actually racing in the BTCC was in 2010, where he drove a NGTC engined Vauxhall Vectra for his own racing team. As mentioned, he was scheduled to compete the following season for Rob Austin Racing in the Audi, but left the team after the Brands weekend due to business commitments.

The next driver is Steven Kane, the Northern Ireland driver who hugely impressed in 2010 as he partnered Mat Jackson in the second of the Airwaves BMW's. He managed to get a number of podiums over the course of the season, and showed the prowess of the rear wheel drive machines. Since he left the series at the end of the 2010 season, Kane has competed in the American Le Mans series for Dyson Racing, and the following year drove an Audi R8 for Oryx Racing in the Rolex Sports Car Series.

Another BMW driver that decided to quit the BTCC after 2010 is Martin Depper. He made his touring car debut in the BMW 320i alongside team mate and manager Arthur Forster in the Forster Motorsport cars. Neither of the drivers had spectacular seasons, and it became a common feature to see at least one of the cars off the track, sometimes even both! After their miserable campaigns, the pair returned to the MINI Challenge for 2011, and more recently Depper has competed in the VW Racing Cup in a VW Scirocco.

There are also a couple of drivers who did leave the series after selling their cars. Martin Johnson drove an ageing Vauxhall Astra Coupe in the 2010 season, and managed to pick up some points over the year. However, after the Brands finale, Johnson sold his Astra to a touring car team in the UAE touring car championship, but was then offered to drive the car as a farewell. Since then, there has been no word on what he is currently doing.

The other driver that sold their car is young Matt Hamilton, who drove for his dad's TH Motorsport team in an old Honda Civic Type R. Like with the Forster duo, Matt struggled in 2010, and had to miss Croft due to a lack of budget. Then there were rumours that the Civic had been sold, which therefore resulting in him losing his 2010 drive. Since then it was reported that Matt would be returning to the series in 2012 in an NGTC spec Skoda Octavia, but that has yet to materialise, again due to sponsorship and budgetary issues.

Two of the biggest driver departures of 2010 occurred very early in the season - in fact just after the first round at Thruxton. Most of course will know that I am talking about former double champion Fabrizio Giovanardi and his team mate Phil Glew, who both took part in the series for Triple 8 but left after Uniq pulled out of the programme. Glew did make a brief return at the Silverstone round however with STR and YRC. Since their departures, Giovanardi has been driving in the Superstars series, but again, there is little information about what he has been doing over the last couple of years due to him being outside the world of touring cars. On the other hand, his team mate Phil Glew has been racing in the British GT championship with Lotus, and I believe he is still in the series.

Photo credit: Phil Laughton Photography

Team HARD lose Cole

Well I was only saying yesterday that the BTCC is full of surprises, and I don't think anyone was expecting this - James Cole leaving Team HARD with immediate effect.

In all fairness, I think that Tony Gilham's decision to run four cars in only the teams second season was a bit ambitious, but was prepared to be proven wrong and see them progress well, especially with the likes of Tom Onslow-Cole and Jack Goff on board.

It is a shame to lose James, I thought he was doing fairly well in his debut season, which was even more challenging with him driving one of the new NGTC Vauxhall Insignia's that, again, have not lived up to their full potential as of yet. Despite that, he has done well to overcome some of the numerous mechanical issues his car has suffered to at least finish in the middle of the pack, which is where everyone would expect the car to be.

I also thought that James was with the right team in Tony Gilham's squad - particularly when you look at the work that the team have put into the VW Cup and the success they've gained from there. They have some very talented young drivers, and Tony's experience has helped them be successful, particularly when you look at Howard Fuller and Aaron Williamson, and in my opinion, I thought he would have fitted in perfectly. But according to him, he has said that he is looking for new partners who "share the same vision as him", which suggests that he was uncomfortable at Team HARD.

All I can say is that I hope to see him back in the championship as soon as possible, and hope that the team can find a talented replacement and continue their progress to the front of the BTCC grid.

Photo credit: Phil Laughton Photography