Cammish’s BTCC aspirations
Matt James speaks to the Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R racer who came oh-so-close to BTCC glory
It was very hard not to feel sorry for Dan Cammish at the end of 2019. He had gone into the final race of his second season in the British Touring Car Championship at the top of the points table, with just 15 laps between him and the title.
In the end, the factory Honda Civic Type R driver suffered brake failure at the worst place of all to have it at Brands Hatch: going into the super-fast Hawthorn corner. He frisbeed into the tyre wall and it allowed Colin Turkington’s WSR BMW 330i M Sport to snatch back the advantage and win the crown by just two points.
“That was so tough to swallow,” reflects Cammish. “I have had a tough couple of months since then, I will be frank. After 29 rounds, and up against some tough competition, we had a very realistic chance of taking the title. I had 14 podiums – almost half of the races – only for it all to be taken away through no fault of our own.
“When something like that happens, you just think about the hard work that you’ve put in, what your family and friends have been through, and the level of effort that the team had put in. It is just so disappointing. But I think the most important thing about it all is how I am able to bounce back from it. That is what my mind is focused on right now.”
The fact that Cammish was even in with a shout was the sign-off to a highly impressive campaign. There were two wins but he had remained in the title hunt up against the onslaught of the brand new BMWS. It was remarkable.
Indeed, Cammish would tell anyone who would listen over the opening part of the battle that he was merely leading “Class B”. He pointed that out repeatedly over the start of the year.
“I was the one who possibly had the closest insight of all into the strengths of the BMW – and credit to WSR for building a car that well and getting on top of it straight out of the box,” Cammish says. “But I was fully aware of what it could do and what it couldn’t do. And it is not my job just to turn up and accept it. Of course I tried to make my point when I could, because I needed to try and get my views across. People have criticised me for having an opinion, but that is how I honestly felt.”
By the time the series reached its halfway point – and with some rearwheel-drive-friendly tracks already in the book – Cammish was 65 points behind table-topper Turkington. “I knew I just had to stick in there,” says Cammish. “I wasn’t haemorrhaging points to
[the BMWS], but I wasn’t gaining ground either. But I just had the feeling that things would swing back to me. You have to have that faith.”
After a slight rule tweak, the BMWS did struggle over the latter part of the year and the Honda bandwagon was gathering strength. The fact Cammish scored 63 points more than Turkington over the last 15 rounds proves the point.
The double Porsche Carrera Cup GB title winner says that resurgence from August onwards was partly due to the learning he had done in his maiden campaign in the BTCC in 2018.
That had resulted in two wins and
10th in the points, but learning about the ebb and flow of the tin-top contest was perhaps the biggest thing he took away from the season.
“The first year was interesting,” recalls Cammish. “I was joining the best team on the grid in Team Dynamics, and I think there might have been a little bit of a target on my car. People were wondering who this guy was who didn’t have any tin-top experience suddenly in one of the best cars on the grid.
“Also, there was some readjustment for me to do. My career had been on a GT pathway. When you race in Porsches, it is all about qualifying, and racing wheelto-wheel is rare. It is certainly not rare in the BTCC.
“I had to learn how to race against certain people. A lot of the guys on the BTCC grid came up racing alongside each other in Renault Clios or in the BTCC. I hadn’t raced against any of them because I came through a different path and I had to learn pretty quickly. It takes a while to suss people out.”
Those building blocks for the 2019 charge were also founded on other things he picked up in the maiden challenge. He finished 10th in the standings, with two wins in the final meeting of the season at Brands Hatch.
“If I looked back, another 50 points would have given me third place in 2018,” he says. “You reflect on the season and you can target where some of the points went begging although I guess that is the same for everyone. You learn each point is worth fighting for. When you project that to 2019, you can see how vital that is. Who would have thought that at the end of the 30 races, there would be just two points between three drivers.”
While there was the bitter pill of the championship loss to deal with, Cammish has now firmly established himself as one of the major players in the category and that was reflected when Team Dynamics signed Cammish for another two seasons back in August.
“OK, so I didn’t win the title and that was a heartbreak,” says Cammish.
“But, I have a two-year deal so I know what I am doing in the future and it shows the faith the team has had in me and has in me going forward.
“That is probably the biggest prize of all that I could have taken away from 2019.” n