CELEBRATING 60 YEARS OF A UK BATTLEGROUND

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 time for Autosport to do the same. We’ve tried to cram as many great drivers, iconic machines and dramatic moments as possible into our supplement. Elsewhere, we catch up with Robert Kubica (p14), a man who has had his own personal fight following his rally crash seven years ago, and look at how Jean-eric Vergne – who needed a different kind of resurrection – defeated the manufacturer giants in Formula E (p18). Another big motorsport category visits Britain this weekend. After what seems like an age (actually two months), the World Endurance Championship returns, with its Silverstone round. Will Fernando Alonso extend the title lead he currently holds with Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima? Can the LMP1 privateers get any closer to Toyota? And who will win the hard-fought LMP2 and GTE classes? If you can’t make it to Silverstone, be sure to tune in to the live coverage for the answers – see page 63 for details.