Infiniti takes it to BMW in the rear-wheel-drive war
Colin Turkington leads the British Touring Car Championship after its belated kick-off at Donington Park last weekend, thanks mainly to a supremely classy and dominant win in the second of the trio of races. So far, so BTCC. After all, the four-time champion, the ever-strong West Surrey Racing team and their rear-wheel-drive BMW 330i M Sport weapon are the acknowledged standard of BTCC excellence.
But Turkington, WSR and BMW are going to have their work cut out, because Donington brought an alternative rear-driven interloper into the mix. The original version of the Infiniti Q50 clogged the back of the grid in 2015, but since the middle of last year the project has been rehomed, rethought, revamped, re-engineered and newly built as a collaboration between former midfield minnow Laser Tools Racing and ex-Subaru official team BMR. With BMR has come Ash Sutton, one of the fastest and feistiest touring car drivers of his generation. And in his hands, the Infiniti was spellbindingly fast at Donington. Sutton’s win came ‘only’ in the reversed-grid finale, but was the result of him sledgehammering his way up the field throughout the day from 26th and last in the opening race after he’d been spun around by… Turkington.
The threat from Sutton, LTR and their version of
