Sam Tordoff leads at halfway point in open BTCC season
What is shaping up to be one of the most open BTCC title run-ins for years sees West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff lead the standings at the halfway point of the season. The first half of the campaign saw 10 different winners from 15 races, and ended with just 58 points covering the top 10 in the standings.
Rewind 12 months and Honda’s Gordon Shedden had amassed 195 points, with Jason Plato just 10 behind him in the Team BMR Volkswagen CC. Looking at the current standings, Yorkshireman Tordoff has 27 points fewer than Shedden had, albeit with a slightly larger margin to his closest contender.
Team-mate Rob Collard has strung together a genuine title push to date and sits 12 points behind Tordoff, with the wily old stager Matt Neal just another three further back for Team Dynamics. And it is these three who are sitting pretty at present, with a sizeable 22-point gap to Motorbase Performance’s consistent performer Andrew Jordan in fourth.
With a mature rule set and the top teams now with growing experience running the new control RML parts, the margin for error in the 2016 championship is finer than ever. And this is no more apparent when considering the fortunes of reigning champion Shedden, whose dreadful weekend at Croft sees him in a distant ninth, 52 points behind Tordoff.
With Honda not quite at their usual level and the Team BMR Subaru Levorg GT only just maturing as a front-running machine, we have the genuine possibility of seeing a new name on the famous old championship trophy for the first time since Jordan in 2013.
And what will make the run-in even more fascinating is the sheer number of variables any given weekend will throw at the title contenders.
Both Colin Turkington and Jason Plato are perched just outside the top 10, and will have huge amounts of qualifying pace in their ballast-free Levorgs. And they are just two of several drivers who could prove to be a fly in the ointment – or even a championship challenger if they go on a good run.
The relationship between Speedworks Motorsport and Tom Ingram has matured yet further in 2016, with the youngster a front-running concern at all types of circuits. Standout rookie Ash Sutton took his maiden win last time out for Triple Eight Racing and is just a few points behind Ingram in seventh, while Jack Goff has performed admirably in his first year in the rear-wheel drive BMW 125i M-Sport. And that’s not to mention the impressive newcomer Daniel Lloyd, who has dragged hitherto unseen pace from the Eurotech Racing Honda Civic since he joined the series at Thruxton.
Consistency is clearly going to be key, with poor weekends being punished harder than ever before. Take Ciceley Racing’s Adam Morgan as an example – one of only four double race winners in the field, yet down in 10th in the points after two nightmare meetings at Oulton Park and Croft.
History will tell us the leading pair from this time last year fought out a dramatic battle for the title right up until the final race. Given the famed closeness of the BTCC, few would bet against this happening again in 2016.
