THE SHOWDOWN EVERYONE WANTED
Well, we made it. During the painful year of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic saw to it that the British Touring Car Championship season couldn’t kick off until August, and at no point have crowds been admitted to circuits due to the series’ status as Elite Sport. But, with eight rounds down, that status has saved the day regarding the season finale. Elite Sport events are exempt under the November lockdown, and that means five drivers can fight it out this weekend on the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit.
Four-time champion Colin Turkington leads the way in his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330i M Sport, but Ash Sutton is just nine points adrift in this, his first campaign with the Laser Tools Racing Infiniti Q50, run by his old pals at the BMR Engineering concern. This rear-wheel-drive pair are challenged by front-wheel-drive opposition in the forms of Dan Cammish (Team Dynamics-run Honda Civic Type R), Tom Ingram (Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla) and Rory Butcher (Motorbase Performance Ford Focus). Cammish is 25 points behind Turkington, Ingram is 34 off the summit, and Butcher only has the slenderest of mathematical chances – he’s 63 off the top with 67 available.
Don’t forget, Turkington goes into the weekend with the maximum 60kg of success ballast aboard his BMW, with Sutton on 54kg, Cammish on 48kg, Ingram on 42kg and Butcher on 36kg. This will be changed for race two depending on the result of the opener, and again for the reversed-grid race three based on the result of the second counter. So if, say, Sutton is 15 points (with 20 for a win) behind Turkington going into the final race, but is starting up at the front with a relatively unballasted Infiniti, and Turkington is carrying weight from the wrong end of the top 10, then there’s still everything to play for.
It’s not to be missed on ITV4. But first, what do the five men in the hunt have to say about it?
How do you rate your chances of the championship?
