Mid-season review: Revolution, what revolution?

It’s a well-worn cliché: “Everything changes, yet everything stays the same”.

To look at the 2014 BTCC grid before a wheel had been turned in anger had most fans salivating at the thought of what lay ahead: seven champions, a record number of cars, and plenty of pretenders to the establishment making up the highest quality field for many a year.

It was so hard to call a champion, especially with the likes of Alain Menu and Fabrizio Giovanardi returning to the scene.

But look at the standings at halfway, and where are we? The usual old hands from the modern era of the BTCC fighting it out at the top. Four of our last five champions in the top positions, with Rob Collard the only interloper after an excellent year to date.

Only Matt Neal is absent, down in seventh after a year where walking under ladders in the paddock has clearly been the order of the day. And both Menu and Giovanardi are nowhere to be seen, with the Swiss arguably the unluckiest driver in the field of 31, and the Italian struggling to get to grips with a car which still isn’t a regular front runner.

West Surrey Racing and Colin Turkington have been the class act over the last two weekends and deservedly lead at halfway, with the 2009 champion taking four wins from the front to go with the reverse grid success at Thruxton.

Whichever side of the front-wheel drive versus rear-wheel drive debate you sit on, what is inarguable is that Turkington and WSR have done a fantastic job. They have maximised all their opportunities whenever they have arisen, and they fully deserve to be where they are.

Despite WSR’s dominance in recent races, the championship still remains perfectly poised going into Snetterton this weekend.

Honda Racing Team’s Gordon Shedden is just seven points off the top, after being the model of consistency thus far, and reigning champion Andrew Jordan is only 28 behind – far less than the 40 points which Turkington found himself off the lead at this point last season, before mounting an unlikely shot at the title.

And Knockhill aside, there are no other out-and-out BMW circuits left on the calendar. So anyone expecting a RWD whitewash probably ought to think again – after all, not since the aforementioned Menu’s crushing title win in 1997 has the championship fight not gone to the final meeting.

Neal has virtually conceded the title, but only a fool – or maybe someone who doesn’t watch the BTCC regularly – would write Jason Plato off at this stage. Triple Eight’s lead driver may be 49 points adrift, but somehow you just know he’ll have a say come Brands Hatch in October.

After all, he was this far behind just before the final meeting last year – and who could forget how much drama he helped serve up on that sodden Sunday?

Away from the battle for overall honours, some of the other issues are far more clear cut – rookie of the year being one of them.

Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram has shown a fine turn of speed in his first year, with 15th in the standings not really doing justice to how well he has performed amid a few unfortunate incidents and mechanical woes.

Ingram is doing a better job than Adam Morgan did in the same car in his first year in the BTCC, and against a far stronger field. There’s no reason to think the fellow Ginetta graduate won’t go on to match the results Morgan managed in his sophomore year.

Most improved team is another cut-and-shut case: Team BMR have already joined the list of BTCC winners after Aron Smith’s lights-to-flag drive at Oulton Park, and few would contest that Warren Scott has done an outstanding job to build the team up to the level he has in such a short space of time.

No 2014 mid-season review would be complete without considering the former champions whose fortunes have not been so great.

With Fabrizio Giovanardi, you sense he’s only one good race away from cracking it. He knows the series, and knows the level of physicality you need to succeed – as demonstrated on more than one occasion this year.

With Alain Menu, there may be a very different viewpoint. Remember, this is a man who were it not for Yvan Muller’s misjudged move in China, would have very likely been crowned 2012 world champion.

The car Menu is driving this year is very different to that all-conquering Chevrolet Cruze, but you sense that is not his main source of frustration. Unlike Giovanardi, Menu is not familiar with the modern BTCC format and its reputation for, shall we say, more robust racing than some championships.

The Swiss openly admitted to not knowing a number of drivers in the field, and has been less than impressed with some of the moves he’s been on the end of. Overall, it would appear the landscape is one somewhat different to what a professional racing driver such as Menu may have expected.

Hearing the Italian or Swiss national anthem on the podium again would bring a smile to many fans’ faces, not least this writer’s. But to do so, both will need to break through an establishment which knows this kind of racing better than anyone else.

The season gets under way again at Snetterton this weekend.  And happily for all fans of close racing, predicting a champion at the end of it all is still as tough as ever.