BTCC mid-season review: Neal with the advantage
Take a cursory glance at the BTCC standings, with triple champion Matt Neal leading the way, and you could be forgiven for thinking the 2013 championship to this point has been predictable. In fact, it has been anything but.
At the halfway point of the season, the run-in is shaping up to be the most exciting in years, with what has gone before providing some of the closest and cleanest racing the series has served up for a good while.
The series has taken something of a bashing in the press and on messageboards in recent years, with on-track clashes often providing the major talking points.
As such, 2013 has been a refreshing change, with spectacular battles such as the Jason Plato/Gordon Shedden/Matt Neal dice at Donington sticking in the memory more than incidents.
While the world championship is littered with farcical qualifying penalties; broken down tractors and recovery vehicles sitting on the racing line, the reduction in some of the BTCC’s more agricultural driving is more than welcome.
Neal’s lead at halfway is down in no small part to his guile, and the expertise of the Honda Racing Team squad.
At several meetings he has slipped under the radar, but is still managing bagging points and podiums at every opportunity. Coupled with the pace which is clearly still there in abundance – as Thruxton showed as well as any weekend – and he is a great bet to lift the trophy at Brands Hatch in October.
Chasing Neal hard is one of the outstanding performers of the season so far, Andrew Jordan.
The Eurotech Racing man has married consistency to his undoubted speed and is a genuine contender for the overall crown.
Jordan says he’s not thinking about the Independents’ standings, and on current form, it’s not hard to see why.
What makes his season even more impressive is he is effectively running a solo fight against a pair of works Hondas, and a pair of works MGs. Team-mate Jeff Smith is quick and keeps on improving, but he hasn’t been able to run consistently at the very front.
Gordon Shedden and Jason Plato tie on 188 points for third going into Snetterton, and are both very much in the running. Double champion Plato took crushing double wins at Brands Hatch and Oulton Park, while defending champion Shedden has taken a pair of wins himself.
The two drivers shared a firm difference of opinion over a clash at Thruxton which left Shedden in the barriers, and it has seemed at times that the traditional Plato/Neal needle may have been superseded.
Both will want to come out of the blocks quickly at Snetterton as they bid to close the gap – and experience tells us we would be foolish to write either of them off.
The next three drivers in the standings have been three of the most impressive on the grid in 2013.
BTCC fans didn’t need telling that the returning Colin Turkington was a world-class competitor, but the speed with which he has dragged the new West Surrey Racing BMW 125i to the front has still been mightily impressive.
After a reverse grid win in the second meeting at Donington, the car has moved closer and closer to the outright pace, culminating in the 2009 champion very nearly winning all three races at Croft.
Turkington is playing catch-up as he is 40 points behind Neal, and while he says he’s not been thinking about the title, it is undoubtedly going to come into his mind if this form continues.
Top rookie Sam Tordoff is next, the Triple Eight MG man impressing many seasoned commentators and drivers with his speed and racecraft in his first full season in touring cars.
The Yorkshireman is an extremely level-headed competitor who is always looking to learn, and when he says he will get his first win before the end of the season, you don’t disbelieve him.
Fellow northerner Adam Morgan has also been outstanding at the wheel of his Ciceley Racing Toyota Avensis.
The 2012 campaign was a largely disappointing one for the former Ginetta Supercup champion, but this season Morgan has upped his game in every department.
He took his first podium at Oulton Park, and the final race at Croft was the only blemish on a 100 per cent points-scoring record to that point.
So what of the rest of the grid? A few eyebrows were raised when Tony Gilham Racing announced their plans for the season, but they have left many people eating their words.
The experienced Tom Onslow-Cole has been outstanding in developing a Volkswagen CC which only rolled out of the factory just in time for Brands Hatch, and has scored three podiums already.
On the flip side of the coin, Motorbase Performance have arguably been the biggest disappointment so far.
The Kent squad’s NGTC Focus was immediately quick after its swift conception last summer, but they have struggled to optimise it at several tracks this season.
Qualifying has been the bugbear, with Mat Jackson and Aron Smith almost always making good forward progress in the races.
Nick Tandy and Michael Caine have both run in the team’s third car, and they will undoubtedly be hoping their combined expertise will help the squad move forward later in the year.
Speedworks Motorsport have also had a niggly half-season, with flashes of promise from the rapid Dave Newsham, while Rob Austin has surprisingly struggled at times in his Audi A4 after a great start – and even bigger crash – at Brands Hatch.
The Jack Sears Trophy, for the older S2000 machinery, has proved to be a huge success.
Lea Wood leads the way in the battle for class honours, and there have also been impressive showings from James Kaye, Liam Griffin, and Croft debutant Jake Hill.
The cars may no longer have parity, but the racing has been fierce and there is a great deal of camaraderie among the teams.
The series has already waved goodbye to James Cole, who announced he was leaving Tony Gilham Racing after the last round at Croft.
And we are still yet to see Andy Neate in his new IP Tech Chevrolet Cruze, although the car has been shaken down at Bruntingthorpe Airfield this week. The second new Cruze, of Chris Stockton, is still being built by the BTC Racing team.
The BTCC returns to the track at Snetterton on August 3 and 4.
