Alan Gow proud of the strength of the 2014 BTCC grid

With seven champions and 31 cars entered for the full season, the size of the BTCC field is the strongest it has ever been in some respects, even including the oft-referred to heyday of the 90s Super Touring era, which Series Director Alan Gow puts down the strength of the new technical regulations which were phased in from 2011.

This season sees the return of 2007-2008 champion Fabrizio Giovanardi, and 1997 and 2000 champion Alain Menu, both back in the BTCC after spells in the Italian and World Championships respectively. They join Jason Plato, Matt Neal, Andrew Jordan, Gordon Shedden and Colin Turkington as former drivers’ champions competing against each other for the 2014 title, all driving across six different teams this season.

“It’s nice to have Fabrizio and Alain back, but the Championship is also about the here and now,” said Gow to TouringCarTimes. “The fact that there are five champions, plus Alain and Fabrizio is a testimony to the strength of the Championship.”

With just two officially entered manufacturers in Honda and MG since 2012, whose budgets are smaller than manufacturer entries of recent years, the most recent of which were Vauxhall and SEAT, which dominated in the 2000s, the Championship has become one which can operate fully independent of manufacturers, with the new technical regulations, formerly known as Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC), introducing a spec-chassis and components, helping to control costs and technical input in the BTCC.

“All the way along, as we’ve always seen, when manufacturers pull out of any motorsport, not just touring cars, it leaves a bit of a vacuum,” said Gow. “I wanted to make sure that with the new technical regulations, you can come in as a manufacturer, you can come in as an independent, so it’s that anyone can do it. But of course manufacturer backed teams are always going to be that little bit stronger, as they’re going to have a few more resources, and a little bit of bigger budget.

“But we had 23 cars covered by eight-tenths of a second (at Brands Hatch), and that’s extraordinary, and that’s a really good demonstration of the technical regulations.”

Another new talking point of the 2014 BTCC season is the TOCA BTCC Licence (TBL), which allocated a spot on the grid to each team which were allocated ahead of the season according to a set of requirements to ensure teams that enter the Championship do actually compete this season, after a number of no shows in 2013.

The concept is similar in to the V8 Supercars Championship’s Racing Entitlement Contract (REC), but rather different in its application, as Gow explains:

“The TBL is a little different to the RECs in V8s, it’s not a franchise,” said Gow. “The formula in V8s is an ownership of a company and a franchise, this is strictly a limited number of licences for people to race in the BTCC, and what that gives the teams is a tangible asset that they have, as the only route into the BTCC is through those licences.”

This new formula was tested from the very first round, with Welch Motorsport unable to enter their second Proton Gen-2 for Dan Welch for the first event at Brands Hatch due a parts shortage for the car’s gearbox, but Gow has said there is no rush to make a decision about the team’s TBL for the moment.

“We need to look at their decision, I’ll talk to John (Welch, team principal) and find out what the story is, but they’re not urgent decisions that need to be made right now.”