A formula that works? Manufacturers in the modern BTCC
The 2016 British Touring Car Championship will welcome another new manufacturer to the series with Team BMR running a quartet of Levorg Sports Tourers with full backing from Subaru.
With Jason Plato, who has been a part of four new works projects since 2004, and Colin Turkington spearheading the team’s line-up, and partnering with reigning Teams Champions Team BMR, it is clear that the Japanese marque has its eyes set firmly at the top of the table.
You have to go back to 2010 for the last time a works-backed team took the title in its debut year, when the returning Honda took the manufacturers crown. However, the overall drivers’ championship that year went to Jason Plato of Chevrolet, which was also embarking on its first year in the championship.
Since the BTCC switched to S2000, and later NGTC, regulations, 2010 remains the only season in which manufacturers have enjoyed championship glory come the final drop of the chequered flag.
The first works entry to take on the S2000 regulations was SEAT Sport UK in 2004 with the Toledo Cupra, fielding an impressive team of Jason Plato and future World Touring Car Champion Rob Huff.
The SEAT turned heads at the opening round of the season, with Plato taking victory in only the second race of the year. A further six wins for Plato, coupled with two victories for Rob Huff, was not enough to dethrone the might of Vauxhall’s VX Racing, who won the manufacturers’ crown by almost 200 points.
There would not be a new manufacturer in the championship for another six years, with SEAT pulling its support at the end of 2008, leaving Vauxhall the sole true works team for 2009. Vauxhall ended its own programme at the end of 2009, citing a lack of official manufacturer competition, and the economic crisis, as its reasons for pulling out.
Ironically two new manufacturers joined the championship in 2010 in Honda and Chevrolet, with Honda returning to the series alongside Team Dynamics, a partnership that is still hugely successful today, and Chevrolet making its debut with RML.
Matt Neal, who had been racing with VX Racing for 2008 and 2009, rejoined his family team and former team-mate Gordon Shedden, who has been racing with Dynamics since 2006. The pairing was an instant success, taking ten wins evenly between them and taking Honda to its first BTCC title.
Honda has since become the second most successful marque in BTCC history, winning the manufacturers’ title five times and the drivers’ title three times in six years since its return in 2010.
Chevrolet did not enjoy the same level of success as Honda and despite taking the drivers’ title with Plato in 2010, left the series at the end of the Honda-dominated 2011 season, to concentrate on its hugely successful WTCC programme.
Where one works team left, another team entered, however, as MG made its debut with Triple Eight Racing. Jason Plato was once again at the forefront of the charge, partnered by Andy Neate in the team’s pair of MG6s.
Six wins for Plato in 2012 were not enough to stop the Honda dominance, who finished 1-2 in the drivers’ championship for the second consecutive year. It wasn’t until 2014 that MG were able to take the title, beating Honda by a clear 95 points at the end of the season.
The pair were joined in 2015 by the short-lived Infiniti project, which was more of a PR disaster for the Japanese brand than anything else, especially at a time where parent company Nissan was struggling with its own sportscar project.
With the introduction of Subaru for 2016, there is the strongest chance possible for a debut title in either drivers or manufacturers’ championships. In Turkington and Plato the team has two drivers who can boast two championship wins to their name, with Plato proving time and time again he can deliver the goods in new machinery, while Turkington was a class above the rest the last time he competed in rear-wheel-drive machinery.
As for Team BMR, the team’s 2015 campaign cemented itself as one of the strongest all-round outfits in the paddock and the squad will no doubt be working twice as hard in 2016 to not only retain the teams’ crown, but bring home the manufacturers’ championship in Subaru’s first year.
