Crime and punishment in the BTCC

The question of the consistency of penalties has reared its head after another weekend of racing in the British Touring Car Championship, which saw one on-track penalty handed out, five points added on to drivers’ racing licences and a pair of reprimands.

From what was probably a ‘better than average’ weekend in terms of driving standards, we saw two penalties dished out for incidents in race one, a well behaved and almost processional second race, and then some more panel bashing reserved for the third race of the day.

Cicely Racing’s Adam Morgan, who was the fastest car in a straight line at the Scottish circuit with the Toyota Avensis, had first dispensed of Matt Neal’s Honda a fair and easy pass down the inside on lap seven, but couldn’t do the same with Jason Plato, who was running with the same Swindon ‘TOCA control engine’ in his MG6, and so Morgan ended up using the tried and tested ‘push-to-pass’ move at the hairpin, knocking the two-time champion wide and slipping into fourth place.

Morgan earned himself a convenient 2.5 second penalty for the last pass that dropped him just behind Plato in the results, and the cries of ‘Jason Plato aid’ could be heard all across the country.

After Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan had bumped West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington out of the lead of race two at Snetterton three weeks earlier, and then Honda’s Gordon Shedden doing the same in the third race, they both earned endorsements on their racing licences but kept their victories, and so it some ways the argument could be made that this was not consistent.

However, I think there’s a perfect consistency to the way the penalties are applied in the BTCC. It may not necessarily be fair, but it’s consistent. The key difference between Morgan vs. Plato [Knockhill] and Jordan/Shedden vs. Turkington [Snetterton] is that Turkington didn’t finish right behind his assailants.

Of course that hardly seems fair, slide someone out of the way by one spot and it’ll just be put right by the stewards at the end of the race; knock him several positions back and you pay for it in points on your racing licence – which then may or may not earn you a grid or championship points penalty later on in the season, so could be considered a non-penalty.

The problem is how good the alternative looks. If you gave Jordan and Shedden an FIA standard penalty such as the 30 second drive-through equivalent, they may as well just pull in and save their tyres/engine/time. It works in F1 and endurance racing maybe, but in a 30 minute sprint race like a touring car race, there’s a slim chance of picking up any points after such a penalty is applied, certainly any meaningful ones.

The alternative then is applying an X second time penalty that puts them back behind the driver that they knocked half way down the order in the results, but then you end up with an even more problematic scenario, you end up completely changing the race winner.

If Jordan and Shedden had this applied at Snetterton, Matt Neal would have won the second race having never led, and Motorbase Performance would have walked away with a surprise 1-2 finish with Mat Jackson retrospectively confirmed as the winner ahead of Aron Smith.

Not bad for Motorbase, but probably bad for the Championship on the whole. Changing results after the TV goes off air is a very unpopular move, but in the BTCC there’s no swift justice. Very rarely do you see a drive-through penalty handed out within the action packed half an hour. The drivers get to make their cases and take their licks in the TOCA tent after each race for their behaviour, with a proper evaluation of the cars’ data, with points endorsements on the driver’s licences generally the preferred punishment of the Championship.

So far this season, 32 points have been added to the drivers’ MSA racing licences. Also new for this year is the three-strikes rule, which sees a six-place grid penalty applied at the next race when a driver earns a trio of punishments for bad driving behaviour.

This has already been enforced three times in 2013, with Eurotech Racing’s Jeff Smith and Andrew Jordan both serving theirs at Snetterton and Knockhill respectively, and now after two bumps at Knockhill for Motorbase’s Aron Smith, both in the third race, the Irish driver will serve the third such grid penalty next time at Rockingham, as well as having another five points added to his licence.

It’s at least means we now see a visible penalty served by the drivers who more often misbehave on track, rather than what we’ve seen in recent years with the general amassing of points on drivers racing licences, where after eight and 12 points a driver can start to lose points in the drivers’ championship and even face a ban from competition – but things have never got that bad for this to be enforced.

However, given the number of incidents that we’re still seeing in the BTCC, perhaps more than a six-place penalty could be considered as more of a deterrent.