BTCC 2014: Silverstone
It was the BTCC's penultimate round at Silverstone this weekend; PHer Adam Bennett was there for us
Donington Park - Andy Swift
Thruxton - Jon Spriggs
Oulton Park - Alan Taylor
Croft - Mark Benson
Snetterton - Alexey Underwood
Knockhill - Iain Cameron
Rockingham - Paul Playle
Plato was looking to close the gap on Turkington
Colin Turkington in the BMW entered at the top of the table with a current total of 366 points. His next closest competitor, Jason Plato (311 points), would be chasing him down for a shot at his third title. Having won two out of three of last year's races and being the current qualifying lap record holder, Plato was in a strong position to reduce the points differential ahead of the Brands Hatch season finale.
A sunny Saturday introduced the free practice sessions; the MGs of Sam Tordoff and Plato were topping the tables with Turkington hot on their heels. This theme continued into qualifying, with Plato securing pole for the first race. A flying lap from Turkington managed to split the MGs leaving Tordoff in third. Mat Jackson, Aron Smith and Alain Menu then completed the first three rows. Sunday was shaping up to be a good day of close racing what with the top 23 cars being separated by a mere second.
This was the least of the dramas for Collard...
With the weather holding out for Sunday a good battle was promised in the first race. As expected the RWD BMW managed to have the Chevrolet off the line, putting Turkington into the lead. Jackson also managed to sneak past Tordoff to get his Airwaves Focus up into third. On lap three Plato made a late dive up the inside of Turkington to exit Brooklands in front, regaining the top spot. The top three remained unchanged for the remainder of the race, with Sam Tordoff and Alain Menu rounding up the top five.
Race two started as an almost identical copy of race one. Turkington, who had adopted the soft tyres, took the lead off the line only to be outbraked again into Brooklands by Plato on lap two. Jackson, residing in third, slipped back into fourth behind Menu after some intense battling. Collard was holding onto fifth until the softer compound tyres he was on started to fade which left the door open for the VW of Aron Smith to take the spot. Collard continued to lose places to Tordoff, Giovanardi and Jordan before getting clipped by Clarke who was attempting to regain control of his Focus after a slide - sending Collard off track and skywards. After completing three barrel rolls and coming to a rest on its roof the race was red-flagged and a precautionary flight to A&E for Collard ensued.
Giovarnardi leads the field in his Focus
The top seven places were reversed for the final race, meaning Giovanardi in the Airwaves Focus would sit in pole. Tordoff was in second followed by Smith, Jackson. Menu, Turkington and Plato. Unfortunately Tordoff suffered catastrophic engine failure on the out-lap leaving a clear start for Jackson who stormed straight into second place. Giovanardi then ran wide at Luffield giving his teammate enough room to squeeze through. A collision between Holland's S3 and Cole's Avensis soon bought the safety car out, bunching the grid up again. As the lights went out on the safety car Giovanardi, who had snuck through during formation, handed first back to Jackson who then proceeded to romp home to a comfortable win.
Giovanardi also lost second to Smith before coming embroiled in an epic battle of BTCC greats - Turkington made a move for third whilst coming into Brooklands which subsequently caused some of the closest racing of the day. Giovanardi - a former double champion - and Turkington - the current championship leader - continued side-by-side over the start/finish straight until they were joined by another former champion, Alain Menu, who slotted his VW in there too! The run into Becketts was closely fought with yet another former champion, Jason Plato, managing to close the gap on the three cars enough to nudge the rear of the BMW. This sent Turkington into Giovanardi who somehow managed to catch the resulting slide with a 'dab of oppo' but not before dropping well down the order. They were three abreast again on the run down to Brooklands, with the time lost tussling allowing reigning champion Andrew Jordan's Civic to join the party. Turkington pulled off an epic drive to escape Luffield in third place with Plato, Menu and Jordan nose-to-tail, bringing the final round to a close.
The results of the days racing leave Turkington 50 points clear of Plato and 100 points clear of third placed Gordon Shedden. With only Plato able to stop Turkington claiming his second title it looks like it could be a good final showdown between the two former champions.
Photos: LAT Photo
With the sunshine, packed grandstands and full grids it was a fantastic days racing.
We didn't leave the circuit till quite late and to top it off we ran into Colin Turkington and his family in our local curry house.
Think he definetly deserved his ruby after the moves he pulled off in race 3!
I have watched a couple of Touring Car rounds recently and they are just tedious processions, nose to tail, literally. The best you can expect is an off or two, or a bit of unnecessary panel bashing.
The only thing that could liven it up is a lottery grid every round with big points for fastest qualy laps, points deducted for lousy grid positions and big points for gaining positions. Which adds even more complication to an already unnecessarily complicated, ballast dependent series.
Why not just say standard road cars, up to 2 litres blown, with intake restrictors, cages, sequential box, open exhaust and 3 tyre types, slicks, inters and wets. And if it turned into a one make series then manufacturers might think about what they are building for the road.
And Matt Neil might not throw his teddies out the pram! (although I doubt it).
You don't see people forcing Usain Bolt to carry a bag of sand...
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