BTCC will lose cars, says Gow

A bombshell hit the British Touring Car Championship on Tuesday when official BMW team West Surrey Racing and

2019 series runner-up Andrew Jordan announced that they are parting ways.

In a carefully worded statement, WSR said: “Team BMW and WSR regret to announce that Andrew Jordan has made the difficult decision to withdraw from the 2020 BTCC.” Although Jordan was brought into the official BMW fold for 2020 following the withdrawal of his long-time backer Pirtek at the end of 2019, he did still have to bring some backing for the seat.

Jordan then told Autosport: “The deal we had in place before COVID was great. We were all very happy with that. And then I just couldn’t make the deal work POSTCOVID. I took the tough decision to stick to my guns and if we couldn’t make the deal work as we wanted then that’s how it goes. I’m still on really good terms with BMW. It’s just, unfortunately, a sign of the times.”

While Jordan added: “I’ll probably be doing more historics”, it apparently leaves WSR looking for a new driver, and BTCC boss Alan Gow believes this won’t be the last driver-team crisis before the series kicks off at Donington Park on 1-2 August.

Speaking to Autosport for the latest in our series of #thinkingforward podcasts, Gow said: “We’re fortunate in as much as we’ve got 29 cars. Some teams have got their budget well covered, other teams are hurting, and I would expect by the time we go racing in August we will see three or four cars drop off out of the field. Considering what they’re going through, I think that’s a really good result for the BTCC.”

But Gow is confident that the BTCC will begin at Donington with spectators in attendance – significantly on the same weekend the British Grand Prix takes place at Silverstone behind closed doors.

“As each day goes past, I’m more and more confident that there’ll be an element of spectators allowed into the circuits,” he said. “Only this last week we’ve had the government announce that shops are open, theme parks are open, zoos are open. I struggle to understand how you can allow 30,000 people at Alton Towers and not allow 10,000 people at Donington Park.”

Listen to James Allen talk with Alan Gow as part of Autosport’s series of

podcasts.