NEW QUALIFYING FORMAT IS WORTH ANOTHER GO
The British Touring Car Championship is the most predictably unpredictable of contests, so it was ironic that a TCR Europe-style format change that could have shaken things up gave us the most unpredictably predictable of starting grids.
Instead of the normal half-hour qualifying session, the field was sent out for 25 minutes, from which the fastest 10 would compete in a 10-minute shootout for pole following a fiveminute break. Adding to the strategy headaches, due to the waning daylight hours the field was given a single 50-minute session of practice in place of the pair of 40-minute periods.
And what did we end up with? The six main title contenders – Colin Turkington, Tom Oliphant, Ash Sutton, Rory Butcher, Dan Cammish and Tom Ingram – were all in the top seven on the grid along with, surprise surprise, the unballasted Honda of the rapid Jake Hill.
The cold track conditions meant that, with the exception of Cammish and Ollie Jackson, the top 10 went out and circulated session-long to get heat into their tyres. So it could have been different had, say, the experiment taken place on Snetterton’s traditional mid-summer date. But, by and large, it was well received.
“I enjoyed it – it’s a bit more pressure than a normal qualifying,” said Turkington. AMD/ MB Motorsport team boss Shaun Hollamby added: “I think it would work better on a shorter circuit where people got two stabs at it [with time for a mid-session pitstop]. It’s good that strategy comes into it with tyres.” Josh Cook, who went off early in Q1 and didn’t make the cut in his BTC Racing Honda, was less effusive: “There’s something in it, but what I would love is for us to do a proper shootout, where everyone gets one lap.” Hang on, we’re into Super Touring-era One Shot Showdown territory here, and that was a bit… dull.
Series boss Alan Gow was satisfied with the format, and said that “we have our annual teams’ meeting a couple of weeks after the last race, and we’ll discuss whether we expand it for more rounds or all rounds. I think it worked well, but there’s a couple of minor things I’d change operationally.”
Such as? “When the 25-minute session finished, we probably needed to leave a bit more time, especially on a long lap for cars coming into the pitlane, to do their tyres. Other than that it went well, and generally the teams liked it. It gave you two excitements: ‘shit, who’s going to make the cut?’; and then ‘who’s going to go quickest?’”
“I THINK IT WORKED WELL, BUT THERE’S A COUPLE OF MINOR THINGS I’D CHANGE”