Photo: PSP Images

Touring cars to feature heavily at 2016 Silverstone Classic

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This year’s Silverstone Classic will feature the biggest touring car lineup in the event’s history, with a new grid making its debut at the summer historic festival.

Four grids of tin-tops will be on display around the Silverstone Grand Prix, all of which will form a key part of the Sunday schedule, racing under the banner of ‘Tin-Top Sunday’.

The Super Touring and Under 2-Litre Touring Cars (U2TC) are already firm favourites at the Silverstone Classic, the former for cars of the British Touring Car Championship’s Super Touring era, many of which currently race in the Super Touring Car Challenge series. In the past two years the Super Touring races at the Silverstone Classic have seen victories for guest drivers Rob Huff and Frank Wrathall respectively.

Catering for pre-1966 under two-litre cars, the U2TC races will feature Alfa Romeo GTAs, BMW TiSAs, Lotus Cortinas and many Mini Coopers. In the past it has attracted the likes of Team Dynamics’ Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden and the father-son pairing of Mike and Andrew Jordan. However, with the 2016 Silverstone Classic clashing with the Snetterton round of the BTCC, there will be no chance of a repeat appearance from any of the BTCC drivers.

Also returning to the event is the Big Engined Touring Cars grid, made up of American muscle cars. The last time the American V8s were in action at Silverstone was in 2014 for the 50th anniversary of the Ford Mustang.

Finally, rounding out the touring car contingent will be the all-new grid, the Historic Touring Car Challenge (HTCC). The HTCC was launched in 2011 by Motor Racing Legends to celebrate the British and European Touring Car Championships from the 1970s and early 1980s.

With its inclusion on the Silverstone Classic lineup, the regulations have now been widened to include non-turbo cars up to 1990. As a result, the BMW M3, Golf GTi and the Astra GTE will now join touring car icons such as the Jaguar XJS, Rover Vitesse, BMW CSL, Dolomite Sprint and the Ford Capri. The Sierra Cosworths will remain in action among the Super Touring grid. The HTCC will make its debut at the Silverstone Classic in the form of a 40-minute race with a compulsory pit-stop with an optional driver change.

“Right from its very early days, touring car racing has always been a massive hit with the British public and that’s why we have created this very special Tin-Top Sunday,” said event organiser Nick Wigley. “By adding the flourishing HTCC to our more familiar U2TC, Big Banger and Super Touring grids, Tin-Top Sunday will live up to its star billing as the biggest and best celebration of touring car history ever seen at the Classic. There really will be something for everyone.”