Open season in British touring cars

EMAIL letters@ motorsportnews.co.uk Brands Hatch opener will underline just how competitive the series has become

Last year, there were a record 13 different winners in the British Touring Car Championship. It is a benchmark that the series officials were very proud of. Despite that, there is every chance that the mark could be overtaken this year.

There are several devices in the BTCC that are specifically designed to keep the racing close. There are reversed grids, success ballast and different types of tyre compound. They all work to varying degrees, and that is what makes it almost impossible to pick a round winner before the start of any given event. It is that unpredictability that keeps the fans clicking through the turnstiles, and Brands this weekend is likely to be packed out.

Despite those ebbs and flows in fortune, the title is always fought out by the major players, the men who know how to work the system. Increasingly, that is becoming the younger brigade, the drivers who haven’t got the decades of experience of the likes of Jason Plato and Matt Neal. Those younger drivers, such as reigning champion Ashley Sutton and Independents winner Tom Ingram, are breathing a new life into a series which is about to celebrate its 60th anniversary.