BTCC PLOTS RACING RETURN FOR LATE 2020
Nine race meetings planned for Britain’s leading tin-top battlers
Organisers of the British Touring Car Championship have issued a provisional 27-race schedule for the competition this year, beginning at Donington Park at the start of August.
The line-up features several back-to-back weekends and will finish at Brands Hatch
Grand Prix circuit on November 15.
The new schedule is provisional at the moment and is subject to any government advice that is forthcoming about the lifting of restrictions in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic.
The 2020 series had been due to kick of at Donington Park on March 28-29, just before the national lockdown guidelines were put in place by the UK government.
British Touring Car Championship chief executive Alan Gow said: “These are incredibly challenging times for the whole nation.
“Through it all, we have seen the importance of being both adaptable and pragmatic – and the BTCC will be no different.
“It is entirely logical for us to lock in our provisional dates now, with the ability to amend some later if circumstances dictate.”
All events will be shown live on the ITV network.
There was plenty to be excited about if you were a British motor racing fan in the mid-tolate 1980s. The crop of emerging talent on the radar was huge. Damon Hill was probably not at the forefront of a group that included the likes of Johnny Herbert, Martin Donnelly, Perry Mccarthy, Julian Bailey and Mark Blundell, but he was the one who would go on to have the most success. Hill’s path to the top was one which was far from traditional. Indeed, the hand-to-mouth early stages of his career made it look like he would be the one who fell by the wayside as he grabbed some low-rent opportunities just to keep his momentum going.
From his grand prix debut at Silverstone in an unwieldy Brabham in 1992 through to his on-track warfare with
German Michael Schumacher, nothing came easy for Damon in his quest to win the coveted world championship. But, eventually, he made it in 1996 in one of the most popular title triumphs in years. He has kindly taken time out of his schedule to speak to Motorsport News and answer questions from readers and, in true Hill style, he assesses each one thoroughly and gives full and frank answers. Hill is still a class act, even in his retirement from track activity.
Elsewhere in this issue of Motorsport News, we look at the Motorsport Ireland Academy, which is giving young drivers from the Emerald Isle the chance to progress to the very top of global rallying. Luke Barry traces the history of the scheme.
MN’S columnist-at-large David Addison traces the history of the fabulous BMW M3, the original E30 version. It was, perhaps, the ultimate iteration of a saloon-shaped tin-top racer and was a car that many of its circuit exponents chose to use on the roads, such was the joy the driving experience gave its handler.
Barry also catches up with Swede Fredrik Ahlin, a man who ripped up the stages of the United Kingdom in the British Rally Championship before realising that his dream to reach the very top was just a stretch too far.