Battle resumes at the ‘Snetterton 300’

The British Touring Car Championship visits its first new circuit layout this weekend in Norfolk, for the new configuration of Snetterton with the 3-mile ‘300’ layout. After a two month summer break, the very close 2011 season gets underway again.

After the last round of the championship at Croft way back in June, Honda Racing Team’s Matt Neal went into the mid-season break with the lead of the championship as he did last year, which is now just nine points over the Motorbase Performance Ford driver Mat Jackson. Jackson also has a 15 point lead over Andrew Jordan in the BTCC’s independents’ standings.

Reigning champion Jason Plato has it all to do to try and catch Neal, 40 points back with a maximum 52 points available from the weekend. The Silverline Chevrolet driver is currently in sixth place in the standings and is the best placed normally aspirated Super 2000 driver.

Another revision with the aim of reaching parity has been implemented this weekend, with a further 0.05 bar in turbo boost pressure reduction for all S2000 hybrid (S2000 cars with Next Generation Touring Car 2.0 litre turbocharged engines). This will pull the Honda team down to 1.5 bar with the other teams at 1.6 after an earlier two adjustments in the year. Those excepted from the change are the full NGTC cars of Dynojet Racing, Speedworks Motorsport, Rob Austin Racing and also the new Proton Gen-2 of Welch Motorsport which is due to make its debut, bringing the total number of full NGTC cars in the championship up to four.

The boost pressure may be increased by 0.05 for selected teams over the weekend at the discretion of TOCA.

“We have yet again been held back for doing a good job so far this year, which seems unfair,” said Neal. “But we can only make sure that we have the handling and the speed to overcome this handicap. I am confident that we will perform.”

Independents’ points leader Mat Jackson echoed Neal’s comments,

“We obviously can’t rule out Chevrolet and BMW and with the news of further boost reduction for us, expect to see them at the front at Snetterton,” said Jackson.

“We did some pre-season testing on the Snetterton circuit at the start of the season with all the other fellow NGTC teams and the test went well for us, posting the second fastest time behind the Honda, so it should be fun to see how much we have all progressed throughout the season.”

Qualifying takes place at 15:45 BST on Saturday which is broadcast live on ITV.com, with all three races broadcast live in the UK on ITV4 at 12:10, 14:40 and 17:05 BST on Sunday.

Provisional Entrylist for Snetterton

No – Driver – Team – Car – Spec
1 – Jason Plato – Silverline Chevrolet – Chevrolet Cruze LT (S2000)
2 – Matt Neal – Honda Racing Team – Honda Civic (S2000/NGTC)
4 – Tom Onslow-Cole – Arena Motorsport – Ford Focus (S2000/NGTC)
5 – Tom Chilton – Arena Motorsport – Ford Focus (S2000/NGTC)
7 – Mat Jackson – Motorbase Performance – Ford Focus ST (S2000/NGTC)
8 – Rob Collard – West Surrey Racing – BMW 320si (S2000)
11 – Frank Wrathall – Dynojet Racing – Toyota Avensis (NGTC)
13 – Rob Austin – Rob Austin Racing – Audi A4 (NGTC)
14 – James Nash – Triple Eight Race Engineering – Vauxhall Vectra (S2000/NGTC)
17 – Dave Newsham – Special Tuning Racing – SEAT León TFSI (S2000/NGTC)
18 – Nick Foster – West Surrey Racing – BMW 320si (S2000)
20 – Alex MacDowall – Silverline Chevrolet – Chevrolet Cruze LT (S2000)
22 – Tom Boardman – Special Tuning Racing – SEAT León TFSI (S2000/NGTC)
28 – John George – Tech-Speed Motorsport – Chevrolet Cruze LT (S2000)
29 – Paul O’Neill – Tech-Speed Motorsport – Chevrolet Cruze LT (S2000)
34 – Tony Gilham – Triple Eight Race Engineering – Vauxhall Vectra (S2000/NGTC)
42 – Daniel Welch – Welch Automotive – Proton Gen-2 (NGTC)
43 – Lea Wood – Team Wood Racing – Honda Integra Type-R (BTC)
44 – Andy Neate – Arena Motorsport – Ford Focus (S2000/NGTC)
50 – Tony Hughes – Speedworks Motorsport – Toyota Avensis (NGTC)
52 – Gordon Shedden – Honda Racing Team – Honda Civic (S2000/NGTC)
55 – Jeff Smith – Eurotech Racing – Vauxhall Vectra (S2000/NGTC)
66 – Liam Griffin – Motorbase Performance – Ford Focus ST (S2000/NGTC)
77 – Andrew Jordan – Eurotech Racing – Vauxhall Vectra (S2000/NGTC)
78 – Chris James – Team ES Racing – Chevrolet Lacetti (S2000)
99 – Martin Byford – AmD Milltek Racing – Volkswagen Golf (S2000/NGTC)