The Top 30 drivers of 2013 – Part 2
This is TouringCarTimes’ staff’s run-down of who we think are the top 30 drivers of the 2013 motorsport season in the field of touring car racing, from some of the many championships that we have covered this year.
This is the second part in our countdown, with 30-21 here. Tomorrow we will bring you the top ten.
20 – Robert Dahlgren
The 34-year-old Swede was fastest of all in pre-season testing but lacked the final tenths to challenge his team-mate and champion Thed Björk. While he ended the season without a victory, consistency was there all year and there wasn’t a lot more needed for Dahlgren to put in a serious shot at the title.
19 – Gabriele Tarquini
The veteran Italian was on double duty in 2013, developing the new Honda Civic and putting on a title charge, and expectations pre-season were that he should be a safe bet for the title, that was at least until Yvan Muller put together a last minute deal to carry on with RML in the heavily developed Chevrolet. With crashes in Morocco, Hungary and Russia, as well as some mechanical maladies in the new Honda Civic, his season wasn’t as exciting as perhaps was hoped for, but late season consistency put him safely in second place in the standings.
18 – Linus Ohlsson
The young Swede mastered the challenge of stepping up from a smaller team to a factory Volvo drive beautifully and lacked no speed compared to his established team-mates. While he had a couple of non-scoring races, two victories and five podium finishes is an impressive result for the 22-year-old who should be one of the top title contenders next year.
17 – Gordon Shedden
The 2012 BTCC champion made a spirited defence of his title, right down to the final race of the season at a sodden Brands Hatch. He took the chequered flag first in that encounter, as he did four other times in the season. Looking at the results over the season, eventual winner Andrew Jordan finished 29 out of 30 races in the points, while Shedden had misfortunes such as his Brands Hatch disqualification, and his clash with Jason Plato at Thruxton. Those big results were eventually what cost him the title, but his speed and quality were never in doubt.
16 – James Nash
In his sophomore year in the WTCC, Nash made the move from the Arena team to the experienced bamboo-engineering squad, creating an all-British line-up at the team for the first time. Although not always as fast over a single lap as his team-mate Alex MacDowall, Nash’s season was one of consistency in the early stages, and he became even more racey as the year went on. A brilliant victory, holding off the identical Chevrolet of Michel Nykjaer in Salzburg was easily the highlight of the year. A second win came in Porto, in which he put on a dominant performance. A strong run at Macau saw him jump ahead of Tom Chilton to third in the drivers’ championship, the best an independent driver has achieved, and probably will be for a while.
15 – Gianni Morbidelli
Morbidelli had a fantastic season, clinching the International and Italian Superstars titles. He scored some ten podiums and six race wins. His Audi RS 5 was controversially penalised in an attempt to balance the performance against Mercedes after the driver from Pesaro took a clean sweep of the four races held in Belgium and Portugal, but after that he was still able to grab four podiums and two wins, which handed him the title.
14 – Matt Neal
The 2013 season was the one that got away for triple BTCC champion Neal. He was a model of consistency for much of the year, racking up big points at almost every opportunity. Even his ‘bogey’ circuit of Thruxton yielded an epic weekend. Heading into Rockingham, Neal still led the championship, but it was in Corby that it all started to go away from him. A spin under the safety car in race one, and a mechanical failure halting his race two charge, meant he dropped behind Andrew Jordan. And when he broke his hand in yet another martial arts accident, regaining the lost ground was even more of a tough ask. With just a touch more luck, his excellent season would have resulted in another title.
13 – Jason Plato
Like his long-time nemesis Matt Neal, 2013 could also be seen as the one that got away for two-time BTCC winner Plato. At times he was blisteringly fast, with his rivals unable to cope with the raw pace of the Triple Eight-fettled MG6 GT; Brands Hatch (twice) and Oulton Park being two cases in point. But there were also some high-profile lows, notably the decision to fit wet tyres on a drying track at Croft, dropping out of the lead at Snetterton with mechanical gremlins, and an engine fire during Oulton’s final race. Plato’s relentless desire to win and renowned consistency were on display in spades for much of the year, and he will be a prime bet for a third title if Triple Eight can pull everything together in 2014.
12 – Richard Göransson
The five-time STCC champion fought a tough season with bad luck and technical gremlins. But the BMW driver delivered nonetheless and emerged as the biggest threat to Thed Björk for the title with his usual ever-fighting spirit. Göransson’s speed when everything was in place matched and sometimes beat Björk, promising for an interesting 2014 season.
11 – Colin Turkington
The 2009 BTCC champion returned to full-time racing for the first time since his memorable title at Brands Hatch, and quickly showed he’d lost nothing in the way of speed. Leading the development of West Surrey Racing’s new BMW 125i, Turkington recovered from an unsteady Brands Hatch to net a reverse grid win in the second meeting at Donington Park. Things continued to improve from there, with a memorable pole/1st/1st/2nd scorecard at Croft the highpoint. He may have been an outside bet for the title at the finale, but the fact he was at all was a brilliant achievement. Probably the only downsides to his year were a number of incidents which were not of his making – and ultimately cost him a genuine shot at the championship. A world-class year from a world-class driver.
Coming tomorrow: tenth to first
