BTCC 2015 season review: The slow burner

The 2015 BTCC season will be remembered for its drama-filled final day at Brands Hatch, which saw Honda Yuasa Racing’s Gordon Shedden carve his way through the field and take his second championship victory.

However, the action in Kent on October 11th was an anomaly for 2015. As TouringCarTimes’ own Ian Gallagher said at the time: “It’s taken 29 races but this season’s finally getting exciting!”

That’s taking nothing away from the action in the previous nine meetings, which was highly entertaining in its own right, but there were very few occasions before the finale to get you off your seat in excitement.

Save for some extremely bad luck for Team BMR’s Jason Plato in the opening race and some outstanding driving from Tom Ingram against Plato at Rockingham, the season seemed to follow an almost predictable script, with the usual suspects sharing podium places and top spots in the standings.

It wasn’t until Brands Hatch that things really started to hot up, where an implosion at Team BMR, which many had predicted would happen long before the final round, arguably cost Plato his third BTCC title, while Shedden pulled off the drive of the season to win the championship by just four points.

The announcement of the Team BMR lineup before the 2015 season turned many heads, with reigning champion Colin Turkington and Jason Plato joining Aron Smith and team owner Warren Scott in four Volkswagen CCs. The squad posed three big questions – Who would be “number 1 driver”? Could Turkington, a rear-wheel-drive expert, adapt to the front-wheel-drive Volkswagen quick enough to challenge for the title? Could Jason Plato and Aron Smith, who memorably came to blows at Knockhill in 2012, co-exist in the same garage?

The answers to the first two were made clear early – there wasn’t a number one driver, and Turkington took no time at all adapting to front-wheel-drive, winning his first of four victories in 2015 at Donington Park.

The final question however, took until Brands Hatch to answer. No. Smith was asked to drop back and move aside to allow his team-mate to move up the field and gain valuable points in the championship. Smith refused, resulting in some ugly post-race scenes, with Plato publicly stating Smith had “probably got himself the sack” and a noticeably strange atmosphere surrounding the Team BMR garages.

Meanwhile Gordon Shedden only required a clean weekend to secure the title, and he had anything but that. Having got caught behind Plato in race one, the Scot was unable to set a fast time for the race two grid and would have to start from 13th. A poor race two followed, with damage dropping him down to 19th at the finish line, meaning he would need to finish sixth in race three to take the trophy home.

Cue the most dramatic, nail-biting race of the year. Three early safety cars only heightened the tension as Shedden rapidly ran out of laps to charge up the field while Plato controlled the race from the front. Plato did all he could do, taking the victory and scoring maximum points, but Shedden was a man on a mission. After the final safety car had pulled back in to the pits, Shedden turned it up a notch and began carving his way through the field, leaving almost everyone at Brands Hatch on the edge of their seats.

By the drop of the final chequered flag, Shedden had made his way into fourth place and secured the points needed to take his second championship, equalling the tally of fellow Scot John Cleland.

The final weekend of the year was the culmination of nine rounds of build-up, which featured highlights such as the first on-the-road victory for Adam Morgan at Thruxton, a hugely popular debut win for Jack Goff at Snetterton, an equally popular returning win for Andy Priaulx at Silverstone and a standout drive against Jason Plato from the young Tom Ingram at Rockingham.

Adam Morgan’s victory came in what could be described as breakthrough year for the Ciceley Racing driver, consistently challenging at the sharp end of the field and finishing on the podium no less than five times, including his win in the third race at Thruxton. His results were good enough to finish in seventh in the standings, equalling his previous best result, having finished seventh in 2013, despite only taking one podium result that year.

The returning Andy Priaulx also enjoyed a strong season, winning twice with six additional trips to the podium, although was never truly in the title fight owing to his endurance racing commitments forcing him to miss the Rockingham event, with Nick Foster stepping back in to the West Surrey Racing BMW in his absense. Despite completely missing three races, Priaulx was eighth in the standings come the end of the season, thanks in part to his incredibly strong form in the middle of the year, consecutively finishing no lower than 5th at Croft, Snetterton and Knockhill.

The second half of the season saw the arrival of Motorbase Performance, who were arguably the in-form team of the autumn. Despite missing 15 of the 30 rounds, Mat Jackson accrued enough points to finish 12th in the overall standings, taking four wins in the process – the same number as Shedden. Also taking a further four podiums, Jackson ended over half of the races he entered in 2015 with a champagne shower.

In contrast, it was a less enjoyable debut season for the Support Our Paras Racing team. The team had three different driver lineups in the first three meetings of the year, with Derek Palmer Jr the sole entrant at the opening round at Brands Hatch. Richard Hawken joined the fray at Donington Park, although his tenure only lasted one round before being replaced, in somewhat controversial circumstances, by former Formula One driver Martin Donnelly at Thruxton.

Donnelly’s involvement also only lasted the one round, with Infiniti pulling their support from the team after Thruxton. Once again Palmer was the only man in an Infiniti Q50 as the series took on Oulton Park, but was joined by Max Coates at Croft. Coates also only contested one round for the team, and the team lost their second TOCA BTCC License (TBL) from Snetterton onwards and competed for the remainder of the year as a single car outfit. The highlight of the team’s year was Palmer’s 15th place at Snetterton, scoring the team’s only point in the overall championship all season.

The 2015 BTCC season was a slow burner, but once it got going, it burned with an incredibly bright flame.