Monday 18th April 2016

BTCC 2016: Donington Park

PH will be reviewing each round of this year's BTCC (and apologies for missing Brands) - here's the first!

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Six winners in six races: the 2016 British Touring Car Championship is proving to be anything but predictable, with three breathless races at Donington Park this weekend adding another brace of drivers to the podium. And while Sunday was sunny and glorious, the weather played its part during Saturday qualifying to further shake things up.

Race one saw Triple Eight MG’s Ash Sutton as the lucky Saturday man whose perfect timing on a fast-drying track gave him pole, but a fluffed start dropped him down to fourth; in contrast, Motorbase Ford’s Mat Jackson hooked up brilliantly to lead (well, after an elbows-out bang with Sutton’s team mate Josh Cook). Jackson held on to the end, smartly controlling the race to keep Cook a healthy two seconds behind at the end; Speedworks Toyota driver Tom Ingram nabbed the third place Sutton had fought to get back, with the move seeing Sutton painfully tumble from pole to fifth at the end.

At least he finished: Goodestone Proton driver Dan Welch didn’t, after being bustled into by Matt Simpson’s Speedworks Honda. Welch was furious: Simpson later received two penalty points for it. Oh, and it was a very fiery end for James Cole’s Subaru Levorg, which erupted on lap 15 to bring out the red flag and end his weekend’s racing – the last thing the in-development Silverline car needs (as Jason Plato, back in 17th, would attest).

Inevitably, Jackson was to get hunted down in race two, despite starting on pole: by now, he was carrying 75kg of ballast. He gallantly held on until three-quarter distance, but a fast-starting Rob Collard emerged as race-winner, despite starting back in sixth. It was a victory Collard was over the moon with, saying he was “proud I can still perform like that. We left Brands with a bit of a cloud after race two and I’m delighted we were able to come here and prove to everyone we’re winners”.

Behind him and Jackson, an almighty kerfuffle for third between Sam Tordoff, Jack Goff, Tom Ingram and Aron Smith saw Ingram the big loser, ending up 15th; Smith inherited third but only after gamely holding off a recovering reigning champion Gordon Shedden, with team mate Matt Neal confirming Honda’s weekend was at last underway with sixth (Jack Goff was again fifth for another useful haul of points). Matt Simpson, meanwhile, received a verbal warning: as he’d picked up two reprimands in race one, three driver’s championship points were taken off him and he was demoted to the back of the grid for race three.

A character from Emmerdale made the reverse grid draw for the third race, promoting WSR’s Sam Tordoff to pole. This saw Matt Neal boosted to third – and, ominously, a meticulously-planned weekend of tactics by the Team Dynamics crew meant he was to use the choice tyres for the final race, after getting the soft tyres out of the way during race one when heavy with 75kg of ballast. Neal and Shedden were confident the soft tyres of Tordoff and team mate Goff in second would cry enough during the race. But when would that be?

They actually lasted longer than many people thought. Neal had to wait until lap 10 before picking off Goff for second – he’d taken more out of the softs early on than Tordoff – with Neal then doing the inevitable on Sam through his favourite McLeans overtaking section. Shedden followed through for second, with Tordoff by now hobbled by his tyres: he didn’t fight and concentrated on maintaining third from Collard, who was on the hard tyre. Which he did successfully – just. The gap at the line was half a second.

“We came into this weekend knowing we would need to play a longer-term game,” said Neal. “Our aim was to save the best ‘til last – and that’s exactly what we did. It was great to come away with a one-two finish, and being my home circuit makes it even sweeter.” As does the fact Neal still leads the drivers' championship on 78 points, five clear of Shedden with Goff on 66, Collard on 64, Jackson on 61 and Tordoff on 56. Honda leads the constructors’ championship and Halfords Yuasa Racing leads the teams’ table. Aron Smith is independent drivers’ championship leader while reigning Renault UK Clio Cup champion Ash Sutton heads the Jack Sears Trophy for rookies.

Thruxton is next up, on 8 May. The ultra-tough Kevlar Dunlops are being prepared as we speak, while the Honda drivers are hoping they can continue a winning record that’s seen the brand score 10 out of 15 race victories there between 2011 and 2015…

Watch the highlights here

 

[Photos: LAT Photo]

[MagicalTrevor]

As the co-owner of Ash Sutton's old Formula Ford, I've been watching is progress though Clio Cup and now into BTCC. He's quick, that's for sure! Shame he lost out on a podium.

[CS400]

Has Motorsport on Monday been scrapped?
I haven't seen any F1 or other motorsport news?
I miss a combined overview of all the different motorsports.

[Wkotuning]

CS400 said:

Has Motorsport on Monday been scrapped?
I haven't seen any F1 or other motorsport news?
I miss a combined overview of all the different motorsports.

Agreed. Where's it gone?

[Alex L]

I've not been to BTCC since the 90's when I was in my teens but yesterday's race was certainly a good one and got me interested again.

The Focus' like to cock a wheel under braking

A few shots from my point and shoot

DSC00692 by Alex L, on Flickr

DSC00730 by Alex L, on Flickr

DSC00732 by Alex L, on Flickr

DSC00916 by Alex L, on Flickr

[CS400]

Wkotuning said:

CS400 said:

Has Motorsport on Monday been scrapped?
I haven't seen any F1 or other motorsport news?
I miss a combined overview of all the different motorsports.

Agreed. Where's it gone?

No answer?
Maybe it has been missed off by mistake

Come on PH, please give us our Motorsport on Monday back

[roland82]

@ Alex L

Great pictures, they came out rally well.

[darren9]

Anywhere online I can see the races BTCC.net footage is for IOS devices only apparently and I still haven't seen the races.

[DanielSan]

darren9 said:

Anywhere online I can see the races BTCC.net footage is for IOS devices only apparently and I still haven't seen the races.

You can watch race re-runs on the its page as well.