Q&A with BTCC boss Alan Gowposted in BTCC13 | 10 | 2011
FIFER GORDON SHEDDEN heads into this weekend's British Touring Car Championship showdown within touching distance of winning the title.
The 32-year-old from Dalgety Bay is one of five drivers — including his own Honda Racing team-mate Matt Neal, Jason Plato, Mat Jackson and James Nash — who can be crowned champion.
Out of 27 races to date, eight different drivers – two of them for the first time – have tasted the victory champagne. Another seven have achieved top three results, meaning half the grid has at some point stood on the BTCC podium in 2011. Nine different models of car have also set fastest race laps.
Ahead of this weekend's final triple-header, we caught up with BTCC Series Director Alan Gow at RallyScotland; here's his thoughts on the state of play.
Q: Coming into the final round of the season, five drivers in four different makes of car racing for four different teams can all win the championship. The top three are covered by just five points. What does this say about the championship and what sort of a weekend are the fans in for at Silverstone?
AG: It simply underlines how bloody tough this championship is! The BTCC very rarely fails to deliver a closely fought season; in fact every championship for the last 10 years has been decided at the last event.
But this year has taken it to a whole new level … certainly in at least the last 20 years we’ve never had the top three covered by just five points going into the final round. So to the fans I would suggest that if you can’t get to Silverstone then make sure you stay glued to ITV4 on Sunday … it’s going to be a cracker!”
The 2011 grid has featured a mixture of front and rear-wheel-driven normally aspirated S2000-spec cars, S2000 cars using NGTC-spec turbo engines and the new fully blown NGTC cars. How difficult has it been to achieve parity in what has been a transitional year and, for those of us on the outside, how have you arrived at certain conclusions (eg. reduction in turbo boost levels, additional weight for turbocharged cars)?
I’m really proud of the job we have done in delivering the performance equivalency through the season – quite obviously if we hadn’t got it right, would the championship be this close?! Of course not.
It’s important to remember that we actually know exactly what every car and driver is doing every second of every lap. Nobody else on this planet has access to the huge amount of data which we download and compare from every car every time they run. So it’s not guesswork.
Although I must admit it’s been slightly amusing sometimes hearing, throughout the year, the ‘conspiracy theorists’ and ‘armchair-experts’ (from some of the media and fans alike) who seem to know more about equalising the cars than we do … but thank heavens we don’t operate at their level of ‘expertise’.
At the beginning of the season we said we would equalise the performance between the top two types of cars, which this year proved to be the Honda and the Chevrolet. And of course different circuits and different track conditions suit different cars, different drivers and different set-ups. As well, the cars have continually been developing throughout the year – which is why we said, right from the outset, that we would make frequent tweaks throughout the season.
Every team and driver has their own ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’ stories, when some of their race results have been affected by other issues. That’s precisely why one has to look at it over the season, not just one race or one race meeting or in isolation of all other factors.
But the numbers don’t lie; after 27 races, totalling 489 laps around nine different circuits there’s a mere five points difference between the top two types of car – so if that’s not performance parity then I’m damned if I know what is…!"
There looks set to be a proliferation of NGTC-spec cars for 2012. Four teams have already fielded them in 2011 and now the factory Honda Racing Team plus leading privateers Triple Eight Race Engineering and Pirtek Racing have announced they will take this route for 2012. Others are also making serious noises about switching to this new breed of car for next season – surely vindicating TOCA’s decision to take the BTCC in this direction?
There’s a lot more than ‘serious noises’ coming from other teams. But I would guess that around half the grid next year will be NGTC cars – and that’s not only impressive validation of the new regulations but also a ringing endorsement of the BTCC itself and the commitment teams are making to the championship.
Just look at our grid numbers, our TV audiences and our spectator numbers – all of them are reaching fantastic new highs. We must be doing something right ...”
Fifer Gordon Shedden fired up for BTCC shoot-out
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Jim McGill