We reflect on the 2020 motorsport season for the Blue Oval racers.
The Mk4 Focus ST enjoys a successful maiden season with five outright race wins and 11 podium positions
The Motorbase Performance team had really hit the ground running with the Mk4 Focus ST this year. A completely new car, developed and built from the ground-up over winter, immediately showed its pace in the opening rounds, having won at Oulton Park and Knockhill. At the end of our last update, the team was sitting third in the teams standings, with Rory Butcher in third place in the driver’s table too.
That was after Knockhill, and before the BTCC circus headed to the fastest track on the calendar at Thruxton. Usually, teams would get chance to test at the 2.64-mile high-speed track before the race, but with restrictions in place this year many teams went into the weekend with very little data in the bank.
Butcher and Ollie Jackson both scored points in all three races at Thruxton, with Butcher securing another podium in the final race of the weekend. That kept him in the hunt in the driver’s championship as they headed to Silverstone.
Silverstone was perhaps the most eventful weekend of the entire 2020 season for the Motorbase crew. Butcher started the weekend well with a third-place finish in race one. Contact saw him drop down the order for race two to P14, while teammate Jackson (who finished 13th in race one) made progress to finish in eighth place.
Then came one of the biggest incidents of the season; as Butcher was entering the Maggots/Becketts complex, slight contact with Matt Neale saw the Focus spear off track and hit the barriers with significant force to send the car into a destructive roll.
“The car kept me so safe in the impact, and I am thankful for that,” said Rory in recognition of the stellar efforts of the Motorbase team and all those involved with building such a strong car. “I am just gutted for the team, which has worked so hard. It’s a big repair job for everyone now, but we will come back stronger when we get to Croft.”
Silverstone was a weekend of mixed emotions for the team, because in the same race as Butcher’s crash, Jackson secured his first ever BTCC victory. Jackson continued to make progress throughout the weekend,
and drove a superb race – including a tough restart after Butcher’s accident – to claim another race win for the team.
“I would say that win was long overdue. It was a brilliant day, and now I have that monkey off my back. Obviously it was a tough weekend for the team with Rory’s accident, but hopefully I have given them something to smile about when they are going through the hard work to get us ready for Croft,” said Ollie.
It didn’t leave the team much time to repair the car ahead of the next meeting at Croft. But, thanks to an immense effort, they did (you can see a video of the rebuild on our website www.fastfordmag.co.uk/ fastford-videos). And the car ran faultlessly all weekend at the Yorkshire circuit, even if the drivers felt they didn’t extract the maximum performance that particular weekend.
Butcher said: “It wasn’t the weekend I was hoping for, especially after everybody’s hard work getting the car back on the grid. But the main thing is we’ve got a car that’s still in one piece. We’ve not had the results we anticipated, but we’ve scored points in every race and got fastest lap as well; we’ve got a lot to be proud of.”
After Croft, the penultimate round of the 2020 season was at Snetterton, which was another weekend to remember for Ollie as he secured his second win of the year in a frantic final race of the weekend. He withstood huge pressure to bank his second triumph of the season as he closed in on a top-ten finish in the points standings. Alongside Ollie, Rory had a successful weekend bagging strong points in all three races to keep himself in the hunt for the championship top three. The Scotsman claimed two fourth-place finishes and a fifth spot in a solid weekend.
Then came the final at Brands Hatch, in November. The weather kept everyone on their toes as the conditions switched from wet to dry, and back to wet again. Some fantastic racing was topped off with a win for Rory in the very final race of the year.
After a difficult and challenging season, team principal David Bartrum reflected, “It’s been an incredibly difficult year. I’m really, really happy, really proud of the team, all three drivers, and the work that went into making us as a team. I look at it and think ‘that’s fantastic’, but actually there could have been so much more.”
Looking back at the unfortunate punctures earlier in the season, and the big crash for Butcher at Silverstone, it’s easy to see why David is confident Rory would have been in with a shout for the driver’s crown if things had happened differently, but after five race wins and 11 podium finishes it was a fantastic maiden season for the new Mk4 Focus ST in very challenging circumstances.
Everybody, us included, is looking forward to see how Motorbase can build on this success going into the 2021 BTCC season.